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SEQUEL 



DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY 



CONTAINING 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS, 



REMARKS ON MR. TOOKE'S WORK, 

AND 

ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 



* 



By JOHN BARCLAY 

I! 



And I come after, glening here and there, 
And am ful glad if I maie find an eare 
Of any goodly word that ye han left. 



Chaucer. 



LONDON: 




PUBLISHED BY SMITH, ELDER, AND CO. 

65, CORNHILL. 



MDCCCXXVI. 



T\oi. 

"fa, 5$ 3- 



PREFACE. 



The following Essay on English Verbs treats of 
their formation from one another, and of the effect 
of certain terminating syllables — a subject which 
has not yet received that attention from our Lexi- 
cographers and Grammarians which it deserves. 

The Remarks on " The Diversions of Purley" 
are mostly a selection from Notes, written on 
perusal of that Work. 

In the Remarks on some Names of the Soul, 
I have ventured to differ from authors, whose 
opinion it may well appear presumption in me 
to controvert : but I have not done so rashly, or 
without a careful consideration of the subject ; and 
I have stated, at great length, my reasons for 
differing from them. It may not be superfluous 
to add, that I consider it purely a philological 
question. 

Calcots, June, 1826. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 



Page 

Introduction . 3 

Essay on English Verbs : 

Chap. 1 . Of Verbs ending in FY, EN, and LE . . . . 9 

Chap. 2. Of Verbs ending in ER 18 

Chap. 3. Of Verbs with the prefix BE 68 

PART II. 

Notes written on perusal of The Diversions of Purley 81 

On H. Tooke's List of Past Participles , 91 

On the words Right and Wrong 94 

On some Diminutive Terminations 102 

On Figurative Language, and on some terms employed to 
denote Soul or Spirit: 

Section 1 . On Figurative Language 105 

Section 2. On some terms employed to denote Soul 

or Spirit 1 24 

Appendix. 151 



PART 1. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Inter Jum vereor, ne quibusdam bonis viris etymologies nomen sit invisum." 



The low estimation in which etymology has long 
been held, may, I think, be ascribed to the fol- 
lowing causes : 

1. As usage is allowed to be the proper cri- 
terion of language, many deem it useless labour 
to trace the origin and history of words, a know- 
ledge of their present import being sufficient for 
every necessary purpose. 

2. The unbounded license of conjecture in- 
dulged in etymology, and the many futile things 
that have been advanced in it, may well be sup- 
posed to have had some share in bringing the 
science into contempt ; especially, when we re- 
flect how common it is to find a false or strained 
explanation of a word given by etymologists, in 
order to support a fanciful conceit about its origin. 

3. The too great importance which some attach 
to the origin of words, considering how often it is 
uncertain, and that the etymological sense must, 
in every case where they differ, yield to that of 

b 2 



4 INTRODUCTION". 

usage, is a circumstance that has tended to make 
others think too lightly of it. 

In regard to the first ground of prejudice, it 
may be true, that a knowledge of the origin and 
history of every word in our language (if it were 
attainable) would not enable us to write it with 
more elegance ; yet it does not follow that the 
origin and structure of language, and of our own 
in particular, is not an object of liberal curiosity, 
and perhaps this is all that can be said for some 
other branches of knowledge. A complete know- 
ledge of the theory of music will not make a good 
musician : excellence in that art, as in the use of 
language, being acquired by attending to and 
imitating the compositions and performance of 
such as excel in it. Yet the theory of music is 
thought a liberal study, especially in those who 
have a practical knowledge of the art. 

Etymology, as discovering the origin or deriv- 
ation of words, is a necessary branch of philo- 
logy, and in this view it cannot be deemed 
altogether useless, while the history and structure 
of language are regarded as subjects worthy of the 
attention of philosophers. 

As to the second cause of prejudice against 
etymology, the unbounded license of conjecture 
indulged in it, — the fact cannot be denied. The 
origin of many words must for ever be a subject 
of conjecture, and by too hastily advancing any 
conceits that occur to us, we are apt to bring 
contempt on the whole science. Quintilian has 



INTRODUCTION. O 

recorded some fooleries of ancient etymologists : 
" Ingeniose sibi visus est Cajus Granius ccelibes 
' ' dicere quasi ccelites, quod onere gravissimo vacent* 
" idque Graeco argumento, wQtsQ enim eadem 
" de causa dici affirmat. Nee ei cedit Modestius 
" inventione, nam quia Coelo Saturnus genitalia 
" absciderit, hoc nomine appellatos qui uxore 
" careant. At L. Mlius pituitam quiz petat vitam. 
" Sed cui non post Varonem sit venia, qui agrum, 
" quod in eo agatur aliquid : et graculos, qui 
" gregatim volent, dictos, Ciceroni persuadere 
" voluit,"&c. Lib. I. c.6. 

There are many specimens of ingenuity not 
much inferior to these, in a late excellent work 
on English Synonymes ; for example, we are told, 
that " have, in German haben, Latin habeo, is not, 
" improbably from the Hebrew aba, to desire, — 
" because those who have most, desire most." 
Fetch, A. Saxon fecc-ian, is traced to the Hebrew 
zangnack 9 to send for or go after. Land is from 
lean and line. And "Hind, in all probability 
" signifies one who is in the back ground /" 

The identity of words in languages so remote 
as the Hebrew and the Anglosaxon, when suffi- 
ciently clear, is certainly worthy of remark, were 
it only as a proof of the original brotherhood or 
relationship of mankind. But this identity must 
be clear indeed to be believed : and it will scarcely 
be thought that the identity or connexion of have 
and aba, fetch and zangnack, arise and Hebrew 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

har, a mountain, is veiy clear ; or that of many 
other English and Hebrew words, considered by 
this author, as " in all probability," connected or 
the same. 

It is to be hoped, the works of H. Tooke will 
have some effect in checking the license of etymo- 
logical conjecture. Not a few of his etymologies, 
indeed, are as extravagant and ridiculous as those 
he ridicules ; but his method is less liable to error, 
and deserves imitation. He has not, like some 
other etymologists, rambled over the whole earth 
for the roots of words, which we have from our 
Anglosaxon ancestors, but has confined himself 
to tongues with which ours has a manifest con- 
nexion. He has also set an example of tracing 
words by analogies ; * and of either exhibiting 
(as often as it can be done) the intermediate 
changes, where there is only an alteration or cor- 
ruption of the pronunciation; — or showing that 
it is similar to what has happened with similar 
words. And though he has made more words 
" imperatives," or " past participles/' than there 
is sufficient reason to think so ; yet there is less 
scope for wild conjecture in the mode of etymo- 



* Thus most of the conjunctions are discovered to have been originally 
imperatives of verbs, most of the prepositions nouns, many nouns past par- 
ticiples, ftc The classification of words similarly formed gives a better idea 
of the structure of language, than can bo obtained by perusing a much more 
ponderous etymologhon, in which the words are alphabetically arranged. In 
my opinion, it is by this circumstance, as much as by the great learning and 
ingenuity of the author, that the Diversions of Purley throw so much light 
\ipon language. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

logizing which he has adopted, than where, with- 
out tracing any analogy of formation or deduction, 
one word is said to be derived from another — 
nobody can tell how, but that there is some 
similarity of sound, and some (often far fetched) 
connexion of meaning. 

In over-rating the importance of etymology, 
perhaps Mr. Tooke is the greatest offender ; but 
his high notions of the value of philological 
speculations cannot be regretted, since we are in- 
debted to them for one of the most ingenious 
works on language that we are possessed of; — 
I allude, in particular, to the first volume of the 
Diversions of Purley. The too great importance 
he attaches to such researches, is not, however, 
the only thing that has given offence in Mr. Tooke 's 
work ; its supposed (though not very obvious) 
tendency in favour of Materialism, has also created 
a prejudice against it. 

In the following sheets, I have imitated H. Tooke 
in those particulars of his plan which I have com- 
mended, as well as in endeavouring to find an 
appropriate meaning in the etymology, " not 
" merely a similar word in another language."* 
How far I have erred in proposing improbable 
conjectures, others will decide. I hope, I have 



* " I could be as well contented to stop at loaf in the English, as hlnf in 
" the Anglosaxon; for such a derivation affords no additional or ultimate 
" meaning. The question, with me, is still, why hlaf in the Anglosaxon ? I 
" want a meaning, as the cause of the appellation, and not merely a similar 
" word in another language." — Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 156. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

scarcely, in this respect, exceeded any of those 
that have gone before me ; and if my work throws 
any additional light, however little, on the struc- 
ture of the English language, it will not be de- 
spised by those whose approbation I would desire 
to merit. 



AN 



ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS, 



There are four terminations that belong to classes 
of verbs in the English language, and impart dis- 
tinct characters to them. These terminations are 
FY, EN, LE, and ER. 



CHAPTER I. 

Of verbs ending in FY, EN, and LE. 

l. FY. 

This class corresponds to the verbs ending with 
facere in the Latin language, from which we de- 
rive the termination, softened as it came to us 
through the medium of the French. The verbs 
in FY are formed from Latin nouns ; as, from 
mollis, to mollify; from vilis, to vilify; from 
pax, pads, to pacify, &c. ; or they are softened 
from the Latin, as from liquefacere, to liquefy; 
stupefacere, to stupefy, &c. 

It is remarked, by H. Tooke, that the abbrevi- 
ations of language, which are always improve- 
ments superadded in its progress, are often bor- 



10 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

rowed by one from some other more cultivated 
tongue. We have some verbs ending with IZE, 

EULOGIZE, FAMILIARIZE, SIGNALIZE, &C. Very 

much resembling verbs in FY ; but their number 
is not, perhaps, so considerable. This abbrevi- 
ation we have adopted from the Greek. 

2. EN. 

Sweeten, brighten, harden, frighten, 
strengthen, bolden, stiffen, &c. 

These are all formed from Anglosaxon, or Gothic 
nouns (mostly adjective nouns), and when used 
in an active sense, likewise correspond to the 
Latin verbs in facere, as rubefacere, to redden ; 
candefacere, to whiten, &c. ; when used in a 
neuter sense, they correspond to the Latin verbs 
ending in SCO, as albescere, to whiten, or be- 
come white ; durescere, to harden, or become 
hard; mollescerc, to soften, or become soft; 
rigescere, to stiffen, &c. 

3. LE. 

We have a good many diminutive verbs with 
this termination, like those ending with Mo, in 
Latin. The termination has sometimes no such 
effect, as in kindle, wrestle, Sec. but in general it 
conveys an expression of diminutiveness, or of 
our contempt and dislike. 

To scribble, is derived by Dr. Johnson from 
the Latin scribo — scribillo. It does not, however, 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 11 

signify to write little, but that what is written is 
little worth. 

To prankle, is a diminutive from to prance. 

Now sounding tongues assail his ear, 
Now sounding feet approachen near, 
And now the sounds encrease, 
And from the corner where he lay- 
He sees a train profusely gay, 
Come prank ling o'er the place. 

ParnelVs Faery Tale. 

To dribble, from to drip. 

Ye novelists, that mar what ye would mend, 
Snivelling and drivlling folly without end ; 
Ye pimps, who under virtue's fair pretence, 
Steal to the closet of young innocence, 
And teach her, inexperienced yet and green, 
To scribble as ye scribbled at fifteen ; 
Who, kindling a combustion of desire, 
With some cold moral think to quench the fire ; 
Though all your engineering proves in vain — 
The dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again. 

Cowper. 

ten thousand casks 

For ever dribbling out their base contents. 

Cowper. 

To prattle, from to prate. 

The little strong embrace 
Of prattling children. 

Thomson. 

To shuffle, perhaps a diminutive of to shove, 
implying to shove in a careless or contemptuous 
manner. 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. 

Shakespeare. 



12 AX ESSAY OX ENGLISH VERBS. 

To drizzle, from the Anglosaxon dreos-an, 
dej icere, praecipitare . 

When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

To dwindle, from Anglosaxon dwin-an, tabes- 
cere ; thwin-an, decrescere, minui. 
To tixkle, from to tink. 

Just and but barely to the mark it held 
And faintly tixkl'd on the brazen shield. 

Dryden. 

To swaddle, from to swathe, Anglosaxon sweth- 
an, vincire. — Bailey. 

To daxdle, from to dance. 

Sporting the lion ramp'd, and in his paw 
Daxdl'd the kid. 

Milton. 

To dirle (Scotch), is derived by Dr. Jamieson 
from the Swedish darr-a, to tremble. 

Bot ane dirlixg or ane littill stound. 

G. Douglas' Virgil, p. 424. 1. 49. 

" If there be an L," says Wallis (as quoted in 
Dr. Johnson's Grammar of the English tongue^, 
" as in jingle, tingle, mingle, there is implied an 
" iteration, or frequency of small acts." This, if 
there is any thing in it, would account for to dirk 
being more expressive to us than to darr (Swed- 
ish darr-a), and to tremble, than to tremb (Latin 
trem-ere), would have been. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 13 

To crackle, from to crack, seems both a dimi- 
nutive and frequentative, denoting " an iteration 
" of small acts." 

Who has not listened in a calm and sunny day to the crack- 
ling of furze bushes, caused by the explosion of their little 
elastic pods? — Smith's Introduction to Botany. 

To dinle (Scotch), is derived by Dr. Jamieson 
" from Islandic dyn-a tonare, or rather Belgic 
" tintel-en, to tingle." Perhaps it is rather a 
diminutive from the Anglosaxon dyn-an, to make 
a noise. In the north country, windows are said 
to dinle, when they are made to shake and ring by 
the near report of a gun, a clap of thunder, or a 
carriage passing in the street before them. 

To striddle (Scotch), from to stride. 

Sin' I could striddle o'er a rig. 

Burns. 

To straddle, " supposed to come from to 
" striddle or stride (Johnson)," is more a word of 
contempt. 

To tickle, a diminutive from to touch, by an 
attenuation of the vowel, like sip from sup ; click 
from clack ; tip from top. The interchange of ch 
and k is common in the language. Serenius gives 
as etymons of touch, Moe so -Gothic tek-an, Islandic 
tak-a. 

And sometimes comes she with a tithe pig's tail 
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep, 
Then dreams he of another benefice : — 

Romeo and Juliet. 



14 AX ESSAY OX EXGLISH VERBS. 

To prickle, from to prick. 

You have such a beard, and would so prickle me. 

Congreve. 

To drawl, from to draw, expresses contempt 
or dislike. 

Observe the effect of argumentation in poetry ; we have too 
much of it in Milton ; it transforms the noblest thoughts into 
drawling inferences, and the most beautiful language into 
prose. — Dr. Beatties Letters. 

To ramble, commonly derived from re and 
ambulo, is a diminutive of to roam, which no doubt 
was ram-an in the Anglosaxon : the Anglosaxon 
A having in innumerable instances become O or 
OA in English. * 

The diminutive expression of ramble will be 
felt, if it is substituted for roam in any passage in 
which that word occurs. 

Late as I roam'd intent on Nature's charms, 
I reach'd at eve this wilderness profound. 

Be at tie. 

Do not say rambling muse, wandering or devious, if you 
please. — Gray's Re?)iarks on Beatties Minstrel. 

" Harangue (a la francois) in old English 
" haraxg, is the pure and regular past participle 
" hrang of the Anglosaxon verb hring-an, to sound 
" or make a great sound. And M. Caseneuve 
" alone is right in his description of the word, 
" when he says, — ' Harangue est un discours 



* See page 1-4 ) 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 15 

" prononce avec contention de voix.' So far has 
" the manner of pronunciation changed with us, 
" that if the commencing aspirate before R was 
_i " to be preserved, it was necessary to introduce 
u anA between H and R, and instead of hrang, 
" to pronounce and write the word harang." — 
Div. of Pur ley, vol. ii. p. 274. 

We have here, I think, the origin of the dimi- 
nutive verb to wrangle, explained by Bailey, 
" to bawl, scold, quarrel or bicker." It carries 
the sense of harang, with an expression of con- 
tempt or dislike, by addition of the diminutive 
termination LE. 

With wrangling talents form'd for loud debate. 

Pope. 

Many other verbs with this termination, though 
it is not clear that they are all diminutives of other 
verbs, convey an expression of littleness, or of our 
contempt and dislike. 

To TRIFLE. 

To ogle, perhaps a diminutive of to eye, Ger- 
man auge ; Dutch ooge, eye. 

To GABBLE. 
To FUDDLE. 
To TIPPLE. 
To GUTTLE. 
To HAGGLE. 
To DAGGLE. 
To DABBLE. 
To WHEEDLE. 



16 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

To SWINDLE. 
To HOBBLE. 
To HUDDLE. 
To BUBBLE. 

To brawl, " Smoland- Gothic ivrafla, futilia 
" verba proferre." — Scr cuius. 

To JANGLE. 

To babble, " to prattle like a child." — John- 
son. Perhaps from babe, as prate from brat, chat 
from chit.* 

Then rose the cry of females shrill, 
Mingl'd with childhood's babbling trill. 

Sir W. Scott. 

To frizzle, French fris-er. 

To FUMBLE. 
To PIDDLE. 
To MUDDLE. 
To FONDLE. 
To NIBBLE. 
To WRIGGLE. 
To SNIVEL. 
To DRIVEL. 
To WAMBLE. 
To BUNGLE. 
To QUIBBLE. 
To WADDLE. 
To SCUFFLE. 
To MUMBLE. 



* Scottic£ geet, ab Anglosaxon get-an, vel geat-an, fpgn er e. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 17 

To shochel, or shachel, Scotch, vide Jamie- 
son. 

To SCRABBLE. 

And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned him- 
self mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the 
gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. — 1 Sam. xxi. 1 3. 

To DAWDLE. 

To dawdle over a dish of tea. — BoswelVs Life of Di . Johnson. 



18 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 



CHAP. II. 

Of Verbs ending in ER, and the Latin Frequenta- 
tive Verbs. 

As I intend to illustrate the resemblance which 
certain verbs with this termination have to the 
frequentative verbs of the Latin tongue, it is 
necessary to premise a short account of 

THE LATIN FREQUENTATIVE VERBS. 

They are formed from the past participles of 
their primitives, as from pello, pulsus, pulsare ; 
vertOy versus, versare, &c. A few others, differently 
formed, have also, though perhaps improperly, 
been considered frequentatives : fodicare from 
fodere, labascere from labare, saturare from satiare, 
vellicare from vellere, concupiscere from cupere. 
Dutnesnil. 

With regard to meaning, the Latin frequenta- 
tives are used — 

1st. Simply to denote frequency of the action 
expressed by their primitives. 

2dly. To convey the sense of the primitive with 
greater energy or force, as implying the over- 
coming of difficulty, or much or long continuance 
of the action ; and this intensive or augmentative 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 19 

sense, notwithstanding their name, is perhaps the 
character in which they oftenest occur. 

3dly. A few of them are desiderative verbs, 
captare, venditare, prensare, dormitare, ostentare, 
munitare, affect are, mutuitari. 

4thly. A few seem to have but a remote con- 
nexion with their supposed primitives : tentare, 
supposed from tenere, tractare from trahere, mutare 
from mover e. 

It would be easy to illustrate the different ap- 
plications or characters of the Latin frequentative 
verbs, by quotations from the classics, but my 
business is with the frequentative verbs in our 
own language ; and the nature of the subject 
renders brevity peculiarly necessary. Those, 
therefore, who are not satisfied with the preceding 
account of the Latin frequentative verbs, are re- 
ferred to the Latin Synonymes by M. J. B. Gardin 
Dumesnil, translated into English by the Rev. 
J. M. Gosset, and the following words, allectare, 
amplexari, diversari, exercitatus, grassari, increpi- 
tare, sectari, insectari, labefactare, licitari, natare, 
nexare, objectare, ostentare, pensare, potatio, pulsare, 
propulsare, quassare, raptare, recantare, reptare, 
responsare, salt are, tutari, volitare, fodicare, labas- 
cere, saturare, vellicare, concupiscere ; — and to 
affectare and visere in Dr. Hill's Synonymes of the 
Latin language. 



c 2 



20 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS, 



ENGLISH FREQUENTATIVE VERBS. 

The English frequentative verbs (as I have 
ventured to call them) are formed by the addition 
of ER, generally to the past tense or past parti- 
ciple of the primitive verb. It is unimportant 
whether we say to the past tense or past parti- 
ciple, because, anciently these were generally the 
same word, as is still the case with many verbs : 
but in a few instances, the participial termination 
ED or T, as well as the characteristic vowel of 
the past tense, is necessary to account for the 
formation of our frequentatives. 

" Our ancestors did not deal so copiously in 
" adjectives and participles, as we, their descen- 
" dants, now do. The only method which they 
" had to make a past participle, was by adding 
" ED or EN to the verb : and they added either 
" the one or the other indifferently, as they pleased 
" (the one being as regular as the other), to 
" any verbs which they employed : and they 
" added them either to the indicative mood of the 
" verb, or to the past tense. Shak-ed or shak-en, 
" smytt-edox smytt-en, grow-ed or grow-en, hold-td 
" or hold-en, stung-ed or stung-en, build-ed or 
" build-en, stand-ed or stand-en, mowed or mow-en, 
" know-ed or know-en, throw-ed or throw-en, sow-ed 
" or sow-en, com-ed or com-en, &c. were used by 
" them indifferently. * But their most usual 

* ED seems always to have been the prevailing participial termination. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 21 

" method of speech was to employ the past tense 
" itself without participializing it, or making a par- 
" ticiple of it by the addition of ED or EN. 

" Take as an instance the verb to heave, heaf-an ; 
" By adding ED to the indicative, they 

have the participle Heaved 

" By changing D to T, mere matter of 

pronunciation ------- Heaft 

" By adding EN, they have the parti- 
ciple - -------- Heaven 

" Their regular past tense was (haf, hof) Hove 
" By adding ED to it, they have the 

participle Hoved 

" By adding EN, they had the participle Hoven 

" And all these they used indifferently." — Div. 
of Pur ley, vol. ii. p. 91. 

Most of our frequentative verbs being words of 
great antiquity, it is not to be wondered at, if the 
preterites or past participles, from which some of 
them are formed, are not now in use, nor even all 
the primitives themselves preserved in modern 
English ; and that in tracing them, we must, there- 
fore, occasionally have recourse to the Anglo- 
saxon, and some of the cognate northern lan- 
guages. 

I. From to climb, preterite, clamb, is formed the 
frequentative to clamber, which expresses a 
greater exertion than the primitive. 

Dr. Johnson, " to clamber (probably corrupted 
" from climb, as climber, clamber), to climb with 
" difficulty, as with both hands and feet." 




22 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

He passed week after week in clambering the mountains, 
to see if there was any aperture which the bushes might conceal, 
but found all the summits inaccessible by their prominence. — 
Rasselas. 

Before another wave could overtake me, I reached the main- 
land, where clambering up the cliffs of the shore, tired, and 
almost spent, I sat down in the grass, free from the dangers of 
the foaming ocean. — Robinson Crusoe. 

Or hold him clambering all the fearful night 
On beetling cliffs. 

Castle of Indolence. 

II. From to beat, the frequentative to batter, 
to beat much or often. 

Dr. Johnson, " To batter (battre, to beat), to 
" beat, to beat down, to shatter, &c." 

Batt-re is the same word as to beat, Anglo- 
saxon beat-an, percutere. The termination RE is 
the French mark of the infinitive mood (a termin- 
ation of declension like ons, ez, ent, &c), which we 
have not perhaps in any instance taken along with 
the word ; thus from arriver to arrive, arranger to 
arrange, — so assort-ir, atteind-re, attend-re, pass-er, 
charm-er, propos-er, estim-er, compt-er, descend-re, 
trait-er, concev-oir, convert-ir, conven-ir, prolong-er, 
employ-er, Sec. According to Dr. Johnson, we 
have taken the infinitive termination, with one or 
two other verbs, which will be mentioned after- 
wards. 

When Bellona storms 
With all her battering engines bent to rase 
Some capital city. 

Milton. 

Here long they knock, but knock or call in vain, 
Driven by the wind, and batter'd by the rain. 

Parnell. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 23 

Thick beat the rapid notes, as when 
The mustering hundreds shake the glen, 
And hurrying at the signal dread 
The batter'd earth returns their tread. 

Sir W. Scott. 

III. Home Tooke derives fault from the Italian 
fallito, Div. of Pur ley, vol. ii. p. 32. There is not, 
I believe, any such Italian word in that sense, but 
it might be formed from fallire. This word has 
two meanings in Italian, one from the Latin fallere, 
to deceive ; the other from the Gothic, to fail 
(manquer, commettre des fautes) German fehlen, 
Swedish fel-a, &c. : and ii fault, is a past parti- 
ciple of an Italian verb, it is of fallire, to fail. 
To faulter, is properly a frequentative of to 
fail, though more nearly perhaps of to fait. 

Traiste weile, unpunyst ze sail me not astert 
One sic ane wise, gif ze fait efterwart. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 17. 1. 20. 

It war yneuch, and mycht suffice, think we, 
That they have faltit anys lang time before, 
Quhy doubyl thay thare trespas more and more ? 

Ibid. p. 279. 1.28. 
Quhidder was it we, or than Paris that faltit. 

Ibid. p. 316, 1.26. 
Gif he has faltit, summond him to your seinzie. 

Sir D. Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 56. Chalmers's Edition. 

Is not faultering in pronunciation, frequent fail- 
ing or faulting in articulation ? 

Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last falt'ring accents whisper'd praise. 

Goldsmith. 
She faints, she falls, and scarce recovering strength, 
Thus with a faultering tongue she speaks at length. 

Dryden. 



24 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

How often have I led the sportive choir, 
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire. 
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, 
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill, 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour. 

Goldsmith . 

While through the broken pane the tempest sighs, 
And my step falters in the faithless floor, 
Shades of departed joys around me rise. 

Rogers. 

IV. From to light (A. Saxon leoht-an, gdiht-an), 
" to give light or illuminate," past tense and past 
participle lit, is formed the frequentative to 
glitter. The G is the common prefix of Anglo- 
saxon verbs GE. To glitter, is used in speak- 
ing of a multitude of shining objects, or one of 
great splendour, but with peculiar propriety of a 
shining body or bodies in motion, giving frequent 
flashes or gleams of light. 

The scene upon the lake was beautiful. One side of it was 
bordered by a steep crag, from which hung a thousand enormous 
icicles all glittering in the sun. — Guy Mannering. 

But now the clouds in airy tumult fly, 

The sun emerging opes an azure sky ; 

A fresher green the smelling leaves display, 

And, glittering as they tremble, cheer the day. 

Parnell. 
Before the battle joins, from far 
The field yet glitters with the pomp of war. 

Dry den. 

And groves of lances glitter in the air. 

Pope. 

aeraque fulgent 

Sole lacessita, et lucem sub nubila jactant. 

Xneid. VII. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 25 

Glitteris and schane. 

G. Douglas's Translation, p. 226. 

I swear by all those glittering stars. 

Otway. 

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, 
With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun, 
When first on this delightful land he spreads 
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, 
Glistering with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on 
Of grateful evening mild ; then silent Night 
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, 
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train : 
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends 
With charms of earliest birds ; nor rising sun 
On this delightful land ; nor herb, fruit, flower, 
Glistering with dew ; nor fragrance after showers, 
Nor grateful evening mild ; nor silent Night, 
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon, 
Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet. 

Milton. 

It is not easy to define the difference of mean- 
ing expressed by to glister, and to glitter, 
but they could not with propriety change places 
in the last quotation. Is it that to glister is more 
applicable to the surface of a body not naturally 
luminous, though shining at the time, and that to 
glitter is also used in this way, — but spoken with 
greater propriety than glister, of luminous bodies ? 
Etymology, however, gives no support to this dis- 
tinction. 

V. To glister comes from a similar root, the 
Anglosaxon lix-an, lucere, which has not been 
retained in the English, as it has in some of the 
cognate tongues. It is in the Swedish lys-a, past 



26 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

participle lyst ; in the German (with the prefix 
GE) gleiss-en, past participle gleissete or gleisste. 

VI. To glimmer seems to be a frequentative 
from to gleam, Anglosaxon, geleom-an, lucere. It is 
explained by Dr. Johnson, " to shine faintly," and 
it may have acquired this sense, by having first 
been employed to denote the frequent or fitful 
gleaming, or unsteady light (as it generally is) of 
what shines faintly — 

When o'er the dying lamp, the unsteady flame 



Hangs quivering on a point, leaps off by fits 
And falls again. 

Addison. 

With yawning mouths and with half open'd eyes, 
They ply the distaff by the winking light. 
And to their daily labours add the night. 

Dry den. 

The wife and husband equally conspire 

To work by night, and rake the winter fire : 

He sharpens torches in the glimmering room, &c. 

Dry den. 

But now the lights are waxing dim and pale, 
And shed a fitful gleaming o'er the room. 

Wilton. 

There is a similar frequentative verb used in 
the north of Scotland, to blinter, formed from 
to blink (preterite and past participle blink' 7\ to 
gleam, and signifying to give repeated blinks or 
starts of light, as a dying lamp ; and hence, to 
shine faintly and unsteadily. 

So the Anglosaxon verb scim-an or scim-ian, 
lucere, to shine, in the frequentative form to 
shimmer, has come to signify shining faintly or 
glimmering. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 



27 



With sic wourdis he schoutand did persew, 
And ay the glimmerand brand baith schuke and schew. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 342. 

Around his head he toss'd his glittering brand. 

Dryden. 
So when a smooth expanse receives imprest 
Calm nature's image on its watery breast, 
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow, 
And skies beneath with answering colours glow ; 
But if a stone the gentle sea divide, 
Swift ruffling circles curl on every side, 
And glimmering fragments of a broken sun, 
Banks, trees, and skies in thick disorder run. 



The scatter'd lights that skirt the bay 
All, one by one, have died away ; 
The only lamp of this lone hour 
Is glimmering in Zuleika's bower. 

And saw a litill shemeryng of light 
For at ane hole in shone the mone bright. 



Parnell. 



Byron. 



Chaucer. 



Twinkling, faint, and distant far, 
Shimmers through mist each planet star. 

Sir W. Scott. 

Dr. Johnson, " to glimmer (glimmer, Danish), 
to shine faintly, &c." 

The Danish verb glimm-er, is the same in pro- 
nunciation as our word to gleam ; the ER is only 
their mark of the infinitive mood. 

VII. To chatter, is another instance, accord- 
ing to Johnson, of our having taken an infinitive 
termination from the French, as part of the word. 
He derives it from caqueter ; and supposes to chat 
contracted from it. 

" He chats — he chatters." I think the latter 
word expresses more than the former, and is a 
frequentative from it. Both signify " to talk idly 



28 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

" or prattle. " The frequentative also signifies 

" to make a noise as a pie, or other inharmonious 

" bird." * 

To chatter, " to make a noise by collision of 

" the teeth," is, perhaps, a frequentative from to 

chaw, preterite and past participle chaw'd or chawt. 

Like him who chaws 
Sardinian herbage to contract his jaws. 

Dryden. 

When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me 
chatter. — King Lear. 

VIII. Dr. Johnson, " to hover (hovio, to hang 
" over, Welsh), to hang in the air overhead, with- 
" out flying off one way or another, &c." 

This is one instance where the great lexicogra- 
pher has failed to make " the explanation and 
" word explained reciprocal." We do not say a 
chandelier hovers, though it hangs over head with- 
out flying off one way or another. 

To hover, always implies motion, and is a fre- 
quentative from to heave (preterite and past parti- 
ciple hove), from which Bailey also derived it. It 
is applied with peculiar propriety to a hawk, when, 
looking for prey, he hangs in the air, without 
flying off one way or another ; and then what 
strikes us in his action but the frequent heaving 
of his wings, by which he supports himself? It is 
also well applied to the lark, when he 

Mounts and sings on flittering wings. 

Burns. 



* So garrire in Latin has both these significations. 

I can prattle like a magpie. 

Congrcvc. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 29 

Like the black raven hovering o'er my peace. 

Young. 
Once more the fleeting soul came back 
T' inspire the mortal frame, 
And in the body took a doubtful stand, 
Doubtful and hovering like expiring flame, 
That mounts and falls by turns, and trembles o'er the brand. 

Dry den. 

IX. Dr. Johnson, " to flutter (Jloter-an 
" Saxon,^/fotter French), to take short flights, with 
" great agitation of the wings, &c." 

This is a frequentative from the Anglosaxon 

fleog-an t to fly; and the Scotch to flaughter, 
flighter, and flitter, seem to be but different 
forms of the same word. Flight (volatus) is a 
past participle from Jieog-an ; and fiocht and 

flaught, are probably ancient forms of the same, 
as from mag-an posse, mocht or moucht, — now 
might, 

O sueit habit and likand bed, quod sche, 
Sa lang as God list suffir and destanye, 
Ressave my blude, and this saul that on flocht is, 
And me delyver from thyr hevy thochtis. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 123. 1.4. 

This ilk Mezentius eik dedenzete nocht 
To sla Orodes, quhilk than was on flocht. 

Ibid. p. 345. 1. 37. 

Atque idem fugientem haud est dignatus Oroden 
Sternere. 

Mneid. X. v. 732. 

An old preterite of to fly, or fleog-an, used by 
Chaucer and other old authors, was flaw, which 
is still retained in Scotland. Flown or flowen is 
softened from flogm, as flaw from flaug, by the 



30 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

common practice of changing or dropping the 
Anglosaxon G : and fioged or Jiauged (using the 
other participial termination), would become fiocht 
or flaught. Flaught is, I think, still used in the 
Scotch word fire flaught (lightning), which 
seems to be nothing more than Jireflight, volatus 
ignis, as natural an appellation as could be in- 
vented. Dr. Jamieson, however, says, " it is 
" evidently from Suio Gothic fyr, Teutonic vier, 
" ignis, and vlacken, spargere flammam, vibrare 
" instar flammae ; coruscare." 

The flamb of fyreflaucht lichting here and thare. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 105. 1. 41. 

The fyreflauchtis flew overthorte the fellis. 

The Monarchie, by Si?' D. Lindsay. 

Flohter-an, I conjecture to have been the first 
form of the frequentative, then jtfo/er-tf/?, and lastly, 
the English flutter; which, whether rightly 
traced here in its formation or not, is evidently a 
frequentative, bearing nearly the same relation in 
meaning to the verb fleog-an to fly, that volitare 
does to volar e. 

A swarm of thin aerial shapes appears, 

And fluttering round his temples deafs his ears. 

Dryden. 
Sacerdos 
Multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris. 

sEneid. VII. v. 89. 

As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
young, spreadeth abroad her wings, &c. — Deuteron. xxxii. 11. 

Sicut aquila provocans ad volandum pullos suos, et super eos 
volitans, &c. — Vulgate. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 31 

A fluttering dove upon the top they tie, 
The living mark at which their arrows fly. 

******* 

Fixed on the mast the feather'd weapon stands 
The fearful pigeon flutters in her bands. 

Dry dens Virgil, V. 650 — 669. 

The foule affrayit flichterit on her wingis. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 144. 1. 39. 

As when the dove her rocky hold forsakes, 
Rous'd in a fright, her sounding wings she shakes ; 
The cavern rings with clattering ; out she flies, 
And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies. 
At first she flutters; but at length she springs 
To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings. 

Dryden's Virgil, V. 1. 276. 

Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs. 

Campbell. 

Spreuland and flychterand in the dede thrawis. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 143. 

Eh ! gude guide us, what's yon ! Hout, it's just a branch of 
ivy flightering awa' frae the wa' : when the moon was in, 
it lookit unco like a dead man's arm wi' a taper in 't. — The 
Antiquary, vol. ii. p. 257. 

He wad hae seen a glance o' light frae the door o' the cave 
flaughtering against the hazels on the other bank. — Ibid. 
vol. ii. p. 144. 

This appears to be the same word ; it is ex- 
plained in the glossary, " light shining fitfully." 

And when the lark, 'tween light and dark, 

Blythe waukens by the daisy's side, 
And mounts and sings on flittering wings, 

A wae-worn ghaist I hameward glide. 

Burns. 

This may be fluttering, or a frequentative of 
to Jiit. 

Above her hedde doves flittering. 

Chaucer, fol. 6. p. 1. col. 2. 



32 AN" ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

X. To flikker, Anglosaxon fliccer-ian, motare 
alas quasi ad volandum, has both the frequentative 
termination and a frequentative sense. Serenius 
subjoins as the same word the German, " Flicker-n, 
" motitare alas, and Sueth. Fleckr-a, motitare" 

To flick, is used in a similar sense, to play up 
and down as the flame of a candle, in the follow- 
ing passage, the only one I remember in which 
it occurs : 

A white wall, although it ne brenne not fully, by flicking of 
the candell, yet is the wall bracke * of the flame. — Chaucer, the 
Parson's Tale,fo\. 112. 

Like the wreath of radiant fire 

On flickering Phoebus front. 

King Lear, Act II. Sc. 2. 

Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her. 
And in paste gems and frippery deck her, 
Oh, flickering feeble and unsicker 

I've found her still, 
Ay ivavering like the willow wicker 

'Tween good and ill. 

Burns. 

XI. To slaughter. 

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scatter 'd on the Alpine mountains cold — 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that roll'd 
Mother with infant down the rocks. 

Milton, Sonnet on the Massacre in Piedmont, 1655. 

The Trojan chiefs behold, with rage and grief, 
Their slaugiiter'd friend, and hasten their relief. 

Dry den. 



* Bereiked ? In some parts of Scotland, soot adhering to, or soiling any- 
thing, is called brook. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 33 

To slaughter is clearly a stronger word than 
to slay, the Angiosaxon sle-an, sleg-an, or slag-an ; 
from which it seems formed in a similar manner 
to that, in which to flutter is formed from fleog-a?i, 
to fly. In the Angiosaxon we find the past par- 
ticiple slagen, occisus, Lye ; and in Chaucer and 
other old authors, slawe and slough occur as pre- 
terite and past participles of to slay. Using the 
other participial termination, we have slaged, which 
would be softened to slaught or slaht, as from 
byg-an to buy, we have bought, from gesec-an to 
seek, sought, from fieog-dLiiflocht, &c. 

Jepte gave his doughter grace 
For to complaine er he her slough. 
Chaucer, the Doctour of Phisicke's Tale, fol. 63. p. 1. col. 1. 

For here thou shalt be slawe. 

Ibid, the Rime of Sir Topaz, fol. 70. p. 2. col. 2. 

XII. From to flounce, preterite and past parti- 
ciple flouncd, is formed to flounder. 

Consider I have you on the hook; you will but flounder 
yourself aweary, and be nevertheless my prisoner. — Congreve, 
the Double Dealer. 

XIII. Tofleech, " to flatter or cajole, &c." may 
have had in the preterite and past participle flaught, 
like reach — r aught, teach — taught, catch — ■ caught, 
stretch — straught, cleik — claught,kc: and drop- 
ping the guttural, flaughter would become to 
flatter. See fleich, in Dr. Jamieson's Dic- 
tionary, where he traces the word in a variety of 
forms in the Gothic dialects, and concludes that 

D 



34 AN ESSAY OX EXGLISH VERBS. 

the French flatt-er is from this origin, and the 
English flatter and Scotch jleech radically the 
same. 

This is another instance, where Dr. Johnson 
supposes we have taken the French infinitive ter 
mination as part of the word, contrary, at least, 
to our common practice. The Anglosaxon infini- 
tive termination itself has been retained in only 
a very few instances, where it seems to have 
grown into the words, and become a part of them : 
to listen, reckon, threaten, hasten. To cheapen 
(Anglosaxon ceap-an) " to attempt to purchase, 
" to bid for any thing, to lessen value," may be 
another instance, if not formed from the adjective 
cheap, like other verbs in EN. 

XIV. To flush and to fluster (flusht — fluster), 
are both spoken of reddening the countenance, 
but the latter seems a stronger expression. 

Dr. Johnson, "to flush, v. a. to colour, to 
" redden, properly, to redden suddenly." 

"To fluster, v. a. (from to flush) to make 
" hot and rosy with drinking, <xc." 

XV. To STACKER, STAKKER, 01' STACHER, 

" Serenius derives Scano-Gothic stagr-a, vacillare, 
" from Suio-Gothic stig-a, incedere. But Islandic 
" stak-a signifies to stumble. " — Jamieson. 

Stig-a is the same word as the Anglosaxon 
" stig-an, ire, discedere, ascendere," Lye : one 
preterite of which, according to H. Tooke, was 
stage, whence stage, a part of a journey steiged 
or gone : and, hence we may have formed to 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 35 

stagger. And as " stig-an was variously pro- 
" nounced and variously written, steig, stye, stie, 
" some sounding and writing the G ; some chang- 
ing it to Y; and some sinking it altogether." 
Div. of Pur ley, vol. ii. p. 284. — from stiet we 
might derive the Scotch form of the word — to 

STEITER Or STOITER. 

As to flutter, signifies to fly this way and that, 
" voler ca et la;" agltare, to drive this way and 
that ; vexare, " qui fertur et rapitur atque hue 
" atque illuc distrahitur, is vexari proprie dicitur," 
Gellius : — so to stagger or staker, to steige or 
stalk this way and that. 

The last is stiff with age, his motion slow ; 
He heaves for breath, he staggers to and fro. 

Dry den. 
She riste her up, and stakereth here and there. 

Chaucer, fol. 210. p. 2. col. 1. 
At length his lonely cot appears in view, 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
The expectant wee-things, todlin stacher thro' 
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise and glee. 

Burns. 
They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to 
stagger like a drunken man. — Book of Job, xii. 25. 

To swagger, is sometimes used in Scotland 
nearly as synonymous with to stagger. It seems 
a frequentative from " to sway or swey, to in- 
" cline to one side ; Islandic sweig-ia, Suio-Gothic 
" swig-a, inclinare, flectere." — Jamieson. Qu. To 
sway or swag, now to this side, now to that, to 
sway or swag often. 

d 2 



36 AN ESSAY OX ENGLISH VERBS 

Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattlin' tow 

Begins to jow and croon ; 
Some swagger name, the best they dow, 

Some wait the afternoon. 

When at his heart he felt the dagger, 
He reeVd his wonted bottle swagger. 



Burns- 



Burns. 



In the sense, " to bluster, to bully," Dr. John- 
son is, probably, right in deriving swagger from 
the Anglosaxon sweg-ian, to make a noise, which 
also might have swag in the preterite and past 
participle. 

XVI. H. Tooke says, " spot, spout is the 
" past participle of the verb to spit, Anglosaxon 
" spitt-an." — Div. of Pur ley, vol. ii. p. 129. 

From spout is formed the frequentative to 
sputter ; answering to the Latin sputo, from 
spuo. 

From spat, the common preterite of spitt-an, is 
formed the frequentative to spatter. And from 

tO bespit, TO BESPATTER. 

See the explanations of these words in Johnson. 

They could neither of them speak their rage, and so fell a 
sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples. — Con- 
greve. 

Their nimble tongues they brandish 'd as they came, 
And lick'd their hissing jaws that sputter'd flame. 

Dry den. 
The laurels crackle in the sputtering fire. 

Dry den. 
They fondly thinking to allay 
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit 
Chew'd bitter ashes, which the offended taste 
With spattering noise rejected. 

Milton. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 37 

The nightly virgin while her wheel she plies, 

Foresees the storms impending in the skies, 

When sparkling lamps their sputtering light advance, 

And in their sockets oily bubbles dance. 

Dry den, 

" Sputter," says Wallis, as quoted in Johnson's 
Grammar, " is, because of the obscure U, some- 
" thing between spit and spout : and by reason of 
" adding R, it intimates a frequent iteration and 
" noise, &c." 

" From spark/' he continues, " by adding L, is 
" made the frequentative sparkle." 

To sparkle, like crackle, seems to have a diminu- 
tive, as well as a frequentative sense, implying 
" an iteration of small acts." There may be more 
than one kind of frequentative Verbs in a lan- 
guage, but, I think, the termination R, though 
not always, does oftener " intimate a frequent 
" iteration" than any other in our language. 

XVII. From to get, Anglosaxon get- an or geat- 
an, preterite and past participle gat, we have the 
frequentative to gather, Anglosaxon gader-an 
or gather -an. 

And therefore woll I shewe you how you shall behave you in 
gathering of richesses, and in what manner ye shullen use 
hem. Firste, ye shall gette hem withouten great desire, sokingly 
and not over hastely, for a manne that is to desiring to get 
richesse, habandoneth him firste to theft and to all other evilles, 
&c. And, Sir, ye shall get richesse by your wit and by your 
travaile unto your profite, and that without harme doing to any 
other persone. In getting richesse ye must file idleness, &c. — 
Chaucer, the Tale of Chaucer, fol. 78. p. 1. col. 2. 



38 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

Gather is often, perhaps oftenest, used to 
signify putting together, without implying that 
the gatherer gets, or acquires right to the things 
gathered, but often also with that sense; and 
many other words have come by custom, to be 
used in a secondary, more than in their primary 
or etymological sense. 

All the blessings I could gather for thee 
By cares on earth, or by my prayers to heaven, 
Were little for my fondness to bestow. 

The Fair Penitent. 

It is very certain, that a man of sound reason cannot forbear 
closing with religion, upon an impartial examination of it ; but 
at the same time, it is certain, that faith is kept alive in us, and 
gathers strength from practice more than from speculation. — 
Spectator, No. 465. 

XVIII. Verbs ending in D or T, were often the 
same in the preterite as in the present tense ; see 
Lowth's Introduction to English Grammar. In 
very old authors, the indicative of many other 
verbs is frequently used for the past participle, 
as blaw for blawin, slawe for slawin, ike. See 
Ruddiman's Glossary to Gawin Douglas's Virgil, 
and Chaucer passim. 

From to pat, " to strike gently or tap," is formed 
the frequentative to patter, to give many slight 
knocks or taps. 

Dr. Johnson, il to patter (from patte, French, 
u the foot), to make a noise like the quick steps 
" of many feet." 

The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard, 
By such as wander thro' the forest walks, 
Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves. 

Thomson. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 39 

Or pattering hail comes pouring on the main, 
When Jupiter descends in harden'd rain. 

Dryden. 

XIX. To fret, to rub, to wear away by rub- 
bing, &c. frequentative to fritter. 

Dr. Johnson has given as the primary sense, 
what is but the secondary, if my derivation is 
preferred. He derives it from the French friture, 
" fried fish, frying, or fried meat" (Levizac) ; and 
explains it, " 1. To cut meat into small pieces to 
" be fried. 2. To break into small particles or 
" fragments." But he gives no example of the 
first sense, and I suspect none could be given. 
The word is mostly used in a figurative sense. 

XX. To fester, " to rankle, to corrupt, to 
" grow virulent" (Johnson), seems to have been 
formed in the manner of frequentatives, from to 

fust (or foist — the derivations are spelled foisty, 
foistiness), " to grow mouldy, to smell ill." 

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 
Lies festering in his shroud. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

XXI. We might speak of the waving of the 
leaves of the aspen, but the expression is imper- 
fect: wavering, however, or quivering (the 
words are probably of the same origin) sufficiently 
expresses the frequency and rapidity of their 
motion. 

Waver and quiver might, in many cases, be 
substituted one for the other. The principal 




40 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

difference is, that the latter is not applied to the 
vacillations or waverings of a mind in doubt, or 
uncertain which side to take, in which metapho- 
rical sense waver is chiefly used. I imagine 
they both come from the Anglosaxon waf-ian to 
wave, past participle waf, whence also the noun 
wave, fluctus. 

And as a cistern that in brim of brass 
Confines the crystal fluid, if chance the sun 
Smite on it, or the moon's resplendent orb, 
The quivering light now flashes on the walls, 
Now leaps uncertain to the vaulted roof : 
Such were the wavering motions of his mind. 

Coupe r. 
Ye lakes that quiver to the curling breeze. 

Pope. 
Oft in the are about thare hedis round 
Thare hands waver it. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, fol. 142. 1. 

Erratque aures et tempora circum 
Crebra manus. 

JEneid. V. 435. 

If self the wavering balance shake, 
It's rarely to be trusted. 

Burns. 

He that waveretii is like a wave of the sea, driven with 
the wind, and tossed. — The General Epistle of James, i. 6. 

Haec memorans, animo nunc hue nunc Jiuctuat illuc : 
An sese mucrone ob tantum dedecus amens 
Induat, et crudum per costas exigat ensem, 
Fluetibus an jaciat mediis, ob littora nando 
Curva petat. 

JEncid. \. 

To quaver is, perhaps, the same word applied 
to the playing, undulation, or wavering of sound. 
" The qu and quh, in the orthography of the old 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 41 

" English and Scottish were introduced from the 
" Roman alphabet, to represent the powers and 
" pronunciation of the Saxon cw, hw, w, and of 
" the British gw, chw" — Bailey, 

The division and quavering which please so much in music, 
have an agreement with the glittering of light playing upon 
a wave. — Bacon. 

This agreement is marked by the words, which 
are both frequentatives. 

XXII. Under the Scottish word to showd, Dr. 
Jamieson mentions a Teutonic verb " schucld-en 
" to shake, quatere, agitare," which seems to be 
the primitive of the English frequentative to 
shudder. 

Unto him stertis Alcanor his bruthir 

To bere him up when that he saw him schuddir. 

G. Douglass Virgil, fol. 327. 1. 41. 

The mychty carvel shudderit at every straike, 
Down swakkand fludis under her brade bilge of aike. 

76£d. fol. 134. 1. 14. 
vastis tremit ictibus aerea puppis 



Subtrahiturque solum. 

Mneid. V. 198. 

I am glad to have it in my power to quote a 
kind of authority, in support of my opinion, 
respecting English frequentatives, in an instance 
of the similar formation of a frequentative in a 
cognate language. 

" To swidder, v. a. To cause to be in doubt, 
" to subject to apprehension, to shake one's reso- 
lution. — v. n. To doubt, to hesitate, pron. 
" swither" 



42 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

Sae there's nae time to swidder 'bout the thing. 

Ross's Helenore. 

* * * " perhaps it may be rather allied to the 
" German schutter-n, concutere, concuti. For 
" Douglas evidently uses it to denote a mental 
" concussion. The German verb is a frequentative 
"from schutt-e?i 9 Teut. schudden, id. Suio Gothic 
" skudd-a. Hence English shudder" — Jamieson. 

To swidder, appears to me to be applied to 
the mental action, like waver, metaphorically ; and 
to be a frequentative of " to svey, sway (pron. 
" swey), v. n. 1. To incline to one side. Grow- 
" ing corn or grass, is said to be swayed when 
" wind-waved." * 

For the heart, pleasing that device, in so far swaycth to it. — 
Guthrie s Trial, p. 116. 

2. "To move backwards and forwards in a seat 
" or pillow, suspended by a rope, &c." — Jamieson. 

The preterite and past participle of to swey is 
sweyd, and hence to swidder, to swey or in- 
cline, now to this side, now to that, to swey often. 

XXIII. From the Anglosaxon swelt-an, obire, 
languescere, the Scottish " to sicelt, to feel some- 
" thing like suffocation in consequence of heat," 
(Jamieson) is formed the frequentative to swelter 
" to be pained with heat," Johnson. 



With spears, as thick as when a field 

Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends 

Her bearded srrove of ears, which way the wind 

Sways them. 

Paradise Lost, Book IV. near the end. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 43 

And yet forsothe for al thine hete, 
Though thou for love swelte and swete. 

Chaucer, fol. 127. 
If the sun's excessive heat 
Makes our bodies swelter, 
To an osier bank we get 
For a friendly shelter. 

Chalkhil. 

They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides. 

Sir W. Scott. 

Outcast of nature, man, the wretched thrall 
Of bitter dropping sweat, of sweltery pain. 

Thomson. 

XXIV. From to slide, preterite and past parti- 
ciple slid, is formed the frequentative to slidder, 
to slide often. 

Dr. Johnson, " to slidder (slidder-en, Dutch), 
" to slide with interruptions ." 

Then Pyrrhus thus, go thou from me to fate, 

And to my father my foul deeds relate. 

Now die. With that he dragg'd the trembling sire 

Sliddering through clottered blood and holy mire, 

The mingl'd paste his murder'd son had made. 

Drydens Virgil. 

Haec dicens, altaria ad ipsa trementem 
Traxit, et in multo lapsantem sanguine nati. 

JEneid. II. 545. 

Clottered seems a stronger word than 
clotted, from which it is formed. 

Swelleth the brest of Arcite, and the sore 
Encreaseth at his heart more and more 
The clotered blood. 

Chaucer, fol. 10. p. I. col. 2. 

XXV. To MOULDER. 



44 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

This frequentative is derived from to mill, a 
word common to many languages : — 

Greek, Mv\uv. 

Latin, molere. 

Maesogothic, mal-an, 

Suiogothic, MAL-A, 

Islandic, mol-a, confringere, comminuere. — 

Scottish, to mule or mool, to crumble — 
Jamieson, Sec. 

Mould is applied as a name to the soil, which 
is ground, qu. milled, muled (Scottish), crumbled or 
comminuted with the implements of husbandry ; 
and from the same past participle (mould) comes 
the frequentative " to moulder, v. a. to turn 
" to dust, to crumble, — and v. n. to be turned 
" to dust, &c." — Johnson. 

The natural histories of Switzerland talk of the fall of those 
rocks, when their foundations have been mouldered with age, 
or rent by an earthquake. — Addison. 

With nodding arches, broken temples spread, 
The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead ; 
Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age, 
Some hostile fury. 

Pope. 

XXVI. " To buster (supposed from blast), 
" to roar as a storm, &c." (Johnson}, seems formed 
from the Anglosaxon bhes-an, flare, to blow, "past 
" tense blase, whence past participle biased, bios' d, 
" blast." — Div. of Purleif, vol. ii. p. 197. Bluest 
was, probably, another past participle from blccs-un 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 45 

(" bloest-baelg, follis," Lye), whence to bluster; 
to blaster, is used by Gawin Douglas. 

And all in vane thus quhil iEneas carpit, 
Ane blasterand bub out fra the north braying, 
Gan over the foreschip in the bak sail ding — 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 16. 1. 18. 

The gates were open and dark. The winds were bluster- 
ing in the hall. The trees strewed the threshold with leaves ; 
the murmur of night was abroad. — Ossian. 

XXVII. Dr. Johnson, " to linger (from 
" leng, Saxon long), to remain long in languor 
" and pain," &c. 

It may be doubted, if to linger, in any case 
implies " pain and languor," but by help of the 
context ; by which it may likewise seem occasion- 
ally to signify to remain long in pleasure ; though 
less frequently used in that way, because we take 
less note of the progress of time, when it glides 
by accompanied with pleasure, than when it 
drags on with languor and pain. To linger, 
merely signifies to remain, stay, abide, or tarry 
long, diu morari vel cunctari ; — and is a frequen- 
tative from the obsolete verb to leng, hnge, or 
kind, i. e. to stay, tarry, or abide : 

Was never wight as I went, that me wysh could 
Where this ladde lenged, less or more. — 
I prayed hem for charitie, or they passed further 
If they knew any courte, or countrye as they went, 
Where that Dow ell dwelleth. 

P. Ploughman, fol. 39. b. pass 8. Quoted by Dr. 
Jamieson, vo. Leind. 

O I will flie as wynde, and no way lynge. 

Chattertons Rowley. 



46 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

To leng is the Anglosaxon ge-lang-an, pro- 
trahere ; lengde, distulit ; gelenged, protractus, — 
Lye, Benson. 

He goes into Mauritania, and takes away with him the fair 
Desdemona, unless his abode be lingered here by some acci- 
dent. — Othello. 

Better to rush at once to shades below, 
Than linger life away, and nourish woe. 

Pope. 
Ye brown o'erarching groves 
That contemplation loves, 
Where willowy Camus lingers with delight. 

Gray. 
Adieu to thee, fair Rhine ! how long delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way. 

Byron. 

XXVIII. " To loiter {loter-en, Dutch), to 
" spend time carelessly, to idle." — Johnson. 

This verb is probably a frequentative, but its 
primitive is not clear, perhaps, the Moeso Gothic 
and Anglosaxon lat-ian, tardare, cunctari, morari. 

XXIX. To scatter is a frequentative, ex- 
pressing with greater energy the sense of the 
Anglosaxon verb scead-an, dividere, to separate 
or divide. The Anglosaxon word is not yet obso- 
lete in Scotland ; see to sched in Dr. Jamieson's 
Dictionary, where he quotes, as the same term, 
" Moeso Gothic skaid-an, Anglosaxon scead-an , 
" Teutonic scheyd-en, Suio Gothic shed a, separare, 
" partiri."* 



* It is also used as a noun, " a sched of corn," (Aberdeenshire) a field of 
corn, a break or division of a farm in corn. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 47 

Past participle perhaps sceadt, and hence to 
scatter. 

Cast forth thy lightning and scatter them. — Psalms. 

Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces as one that was slain ; thou 
hast scattered them with thy strong arm. — Psalms. 

And seven long years the unhappy wandering train 
Were toss'd by storms, and scatter'd through the main. 

Dry den. 

XXX. To SHATTER. 

Dr. Johnson, "to shatter (schetteren Dutch), 
"1. To break at once into many pieces, to break 
"so as to scatter the parts. 2. To dissipate, 
" to make incapable of close and continued at- 
" tention." 

It is explained by Bailey, " to shake, or break 
" to pieces, to endamage, to impair," which better 
agrees with my opinion as to its etymology, that 
it is a frequentative of the Anglosaxon scac-an, 
sceac-an, quatere, concutere, convellere, to shake, 
old English shak, as it is still pronounced in 
Scotland : shak'd, shatter. 

The etymological is not always the most com- 
mon sense of a word ; but many examples of 
shatter used agreeably to this etymology might be 
given, where it does not signify to break " at once" 
into many pieces ; and I imagine no other etymo- 
logy of the word, affording a meaning and mode 
of formation, can be given. 

Mark how the shifting winds from west arise, 
And what collected might involves the skies ! 
Nor can our shaken vessels live at sea, 
Much less against the tempest force their way. 

Dry den's Virgil, V. 24. 



48 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

Continue still your hospitable way, 

And still invent occasions of their stay, 

Till storms and winter winds shall cease to threat, 

And planks and oars repair their shattered fleet. 

Drijdens Virgil, IV. 68. 

Indulge hospitio, causasque innecte morandi 
Dum pelago desaevit hiems, et aquosus Orion, 
Quassat^eque rates ; dum non tractabile coelum. 

JEneid. IV. 52. 

Our shattered barks may yet transport us o'er, 
Safe and inglorious to our native shore. 

Popes Iliad. 
While the winds 
Blow moist and keen, shattering the graceful locks 
Of these fair spreading trees. 

Milton. 

XXXI. To MUTTER. 

The first syllablis that thou did mute 
Was pa, da, lyn ; upon the lute 
Then playit I twenty springs perqueir, 
Quhilke was greit plesour for to heir. 

Sir David Lindsay. 

This passage is thus pointed by Sir Walter 
Scott, in his notes to Marmion ; and pa, da, lyn 
explained to be the first efforts of a child to say 
where s Davy Lindsay ? * 

Dr. Jamieson explains mute " to articulate." 
The explanation Dr. Johnson gives of to mutter, 
" to utter with imperfect articulation," would suit 
the passage better. He refers mute, as Bailey 
does mutter, to Teutonic muyt-en, to mutter, to 
murmur. 



* From the context, " pa, da, lyn" would rather appear to be tie efforts 
of the child to say, Play, Davy Lindsay. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 49 

XXXII. To welter, is formed from to welt, 
the Anglosaxon wcelt-an, volvere, volutari, to roll, 
turn, or drive. 

Down fallis salis, the airs sone we span 
But more abaid, the marinaris every man 
Egirly rollis ouer the fomy flude 
And the haw se weltis up as it war wod. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 74. 1. 31. 
For the Trojanis, — 

Ane huge wecht or hepe of mekil stanys, 
Ruschis and weltis down on thame attanis. 

Ibid, p. 295. 1. 32. 

Quhen brym blastis of the northyn art 

Overquhelmyt had Neptunus in his cart, 

And all to-shaik the levys of the treis, 

The rageand stormes overwelterand wally seis. 

Ibid. p. 200. 1.20. 

Als thik thay gadder and flokkys fra hand to hand, 
As ever the fomy bullerand wallys hie, 
Is sein welter on the large Libyane se, 
Quhen the stormy Orion his hede schroudis 
In wynter vnder the blak wattry cloud is. 

Ibid. p. 234. 1.21. 
For sum welteris ane grete stane up ane brae 
Of quhom in noumer is Sisyphus ane of tha. 

Ibid. p. 186. 1. 12. 

Dr. Johnson, " To welter, v. n. (luealt-an Saxon, 
" welter -en Dutch, volutari Latin,) 1. To roll in 
" water or mire, 2. To roll voluntarily, to 
" wallow." 

These limitations " in water or mire," and 
" voluntarily," are not at all supported by etymo- 
logy, and not well by usage, but it is chiefly in 
speaking of the rolling of the sea, or of rolling in 
blood that welter is now used. 

E 



50 AN ESSAY OX ENGLISH VERBS. 

To lie down upon a couch, or go to bed and welter in an 
easy chair. — Chesterfield. 

He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

Milton. 

Listening with pleasing dread to the deep roar 
Of the wide weltering waves. 

Beattie. 

Then goes the broken-hearted mariner 
Back to the sea, that welters drearily 
Around the homeless earth. 

Wilsons City of the Plague. 

XXXIII. To wander, Anglosaxon wandr-ian, 
seems to be a frequentative from to wend, Anglo- 
Saxon wend-an, — which would have wand in the 
preterite by a change of the characteristic vowel, 
like get — gat, wet — wat, step — stap, spek-an — 
spak, brec-an — brak, send — sand, (Wyntown, vol. ii. 
p. 230.) mete — mat, (Wiclif, Apocal. xxi.) &c. 

Her hors a polk stap in 
The water her wat ay where. 

Sir Tristram, p. 171. 

Tristrem, for sothe to say, 
The geaunt gert he blede. 
Urgan al in tene, 
Faught with his left hand ; 
Oyain Tristrem kene, 
A stern stroke he fand, 
Upon his helme so schene, 
That to the ground he wand, 
Bot up he stert bidene, 
And heried godes sand, 

Almight ; 
Tristrem with his brand 
Fast gan to fight. 

Sir Tristrayn, p. 147. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 51 

To wander denotes, 1. Wending much or far. 
2. Wending with difficulty. 3. Going in a turn- 
ing or winding course, so as to leave the right or 
straight course. This last sense is also derived 
from to wend. 

Wend- an, ire, venire, procedere, — vertere, 
convertere, converti, &c. — Lye. 

" To wend, 1. To go, to pass to or from. 2. To 
" turn round." — Johnson. 

To wend, and the Italian and-are, differ in pro- 
nunciation only as the English wind — ventus, and 
the Swedish ande — breath, spirit, or ghost. 

1st sense of Wander. 

Lo then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilder- 
ness. — Bible. 

I open every packet with tremulous expectation, and am 
agreeably disappointed when I find my friends and my country 
continuing in felicity. I wander, but they are at rest ; they 
suffer few changes but what pass in my own restless imagin- 
ation. — Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 

Him then I sought with purpose dread 

Of treble vengeance on his head ! 

He 'scap'd me. But my bosom's wound 

Some faint relief from wandering found, 

And over distant land and sea 

I bore my load of misery. 

Sir W.Scott. 

Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast 
How shall ye flee away and be at rest ! 
The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, 
Mankind their country —Israel but the grave. 

Byron. 

I did not go out of sight of the boat, as dreading the savages 
coming down the river in canoes : but the boy seeing a low 
descent or vale, about a mile in the country, he wandered to 
it ; and then running back, &c. — Robinson Crusoe. 

E 2 



52 AN ESSAY OX EXGLISH VERBS. 

Wandered seems in this passage only a stronger 
word than went. 

2d sense, Wending with difficulty, or implying 
that a difficulty is overcome, like the difference 
of clamber and climb. 

Bent on seeing it he wandered to Athens. 
Bent on seeing it he went to Athens. 

3d sense, Going in a turning or winding man- 
ner, so as to leave the direct course. 

A wandering path among sandy hillocks, — 

The Antiquary . 
At length the labour was at an end : they saw light beyond 
the prominence, and issuing to the top of the mountain, beheld 
the Nile, yet a narrow current, wandering beneath them. — 
Rasselas. 

But these senses of wander are closely con- 
nected, and more than one of them may be un- 
derstood at once ; wending far is attended with 
difficulty, and going in a winding manner lengthens 
the course. 

XXXIV. The Anglosaxon thun-an is the same 
word as the Latin ton-are; and to thunder 
(from the preterite and past participle thund) is 
the same Anglosaxon verb in the frequentative 
form. Dr. Johnson derives it from the noun 
thunder, without telling us by what analogy^ the 
noun is formed from thun-an, which is unquestion- 
ably the root. 

XXXV. He derives flecker from to fleck. 
The word is of rare occurrence, and I do not know 
if it has any thing of a frequentative character. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 53 

Checkered means having many checks or 
crosses of colour, and is a frequentative from to 
check. 

The gray-eyed mom smiles on the frowning night 
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, 
And darkness flecker'd, like a drunkard reels 
From forth day's path and Titan's burning wheels. 

Shakespeare. 

The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, 
And make a checker'd shadow on the ground. 

Shakespeare. 

XXXVI. To shelter is formed from to shield, 
Anglosaxon scild-an, tegere, protegere, — preterite 
and past participle shielt,, like feel — felt, build — 
built, &c. ; and is a frequentative in formation. 

Our Saviour meek, betook him to his rest, 
Wherever under some concourse of shades, 
"Whose branching arms thick intertwin'd might shield 
From dews and damps of night his shelter'd head, 
But shelter'd slept in vain. 

Paradise Regained. 

So to fodder, from the Anglosaxon fed-an to 
feed, past participle fod. 

XXXVII. The following seem also to be fre- 
quentatives, though the origin of some of them is 
not so clear. 

1. To pamper may be formed from to pimp, 
which by analogy might have pump or pamp 
in the past tense, like sing — sang or sung, &c. 
It is explained by Dr. Johnson, "to provide grati- 
" ncations for the lust of others, to pander, to 
" procure," but if, as H. Tooke supposes (Div. 



54 AN ESSAY OX ENGLISH VERBS. 

of Purley, vol.ii. p. 307.), it had once a more ge- 
neral signification, and "was an excellent good 
word before it was ill-assorted,"* its frequentative 
might import to provide much or frequent gratifi- 
cation of any kind. Johnson, following Bailey, 
derives pamper from pamberare, Italian. But it 
may be remarked that except a few terms of art, 
our speech has little or nothing from the Italian ; 
or only through the medium of the French, in 
which this verb does not exist. No Latin etymo- 
logy of pamberare occurs to me ; and, indeed, the 
word itself is not to be found in any Italian diction- 
ary that I have seen. 

If every just man that now pines with want, 
Had but a moderate and beseeming share 
Of that which lewdly pampered Luxury 
Now heaps upon some few with vast exc\ 
Nature's full blessings would be well dispens'd 
In unsuperfluous even proportion, 
And she no whit encumbered with her store. 

ton. 

2. To clatter (German klapper-ri) perhaps 

from to clap, A. Saxon clapp-an, palpitare ; past 

participle clapd, c/apt, elapter, clatter. 

And still the clap plays clatter. 

Burns. 
Thus, at the shut of even, the weary bird 
Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake 
Cow'rs down, and dozes till the dawn of day ; 
Then claps his well-fledged wings and bears away. 

The Grave. 



* Doll Tearsheet. He a captain ! Hang him, rogue ! He lives upon 
mouklv stewed prunes, and dried cakes. A captain ! These villains will 
make the word captain as odious as the word occupy, which was an excellent 
good word before it was ill-assorted : therefore, captains had need look to it. 
Second Part of King Henry If. Act II 



AN ESSAY OX ENGLISH VERBS. 55 

As when the dove her rocky hold forsakes, 
Rous'd in a fright her sounding wings she shakes ; 
The cavern rings with clattering ; out she flies, 
And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies. 

Dryden. 



Dr. Johnson quotes Anglosaxon clatrnnge, cre- 
pitacula, crepacula, a clattering, Lye, which is 
evidently the gerund of clatter -an. 

3. To squander, " Moeso-Gothic diswinth-an, 
" destruere, Alemannic schwend-en f dilapidare." — 
Serenius. 

Schwend-en seems no very improbable etymon, 
preterite and past participle schwand, see Wander. 
It is the Anglosaxon swind-an consumere, swand 
consumptus. ■ — Lye. 

4. To wilder, Serenius mentions Suio-Gothic 
will-a, in errorem ducere : — wiWd, wilder. 

5. To wonder, the Anglosaxon wundr-ian, 
perhaps from the Anglosaxon wand-ian, vereri ; 
preterite wond, Lye. Several languages bear testi- 
mony to the affinity of the emotions of fear and 
wonder, as is remarked by Mr. Burke in his 
Inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the Sub- 
lime and Beautiful, Part II. Sec. 2. 

6. To smother, from smoke, smottd, smother? 
Anglosaxon smoc-ian, smoc-an, fumare, fumo, 
suffocare, Lye. To smethe is used in Chatterton's 
Rowley. 

This frequentative is in the Scotch pronunci- 
ation contracted to smore, the form in which it 
also appears in the Anglosaxon vocabularies, 



56 AX ESSAY OX EXGLISH VERBS. 

smor-an. It is not a little strange to find a word 
in the English, in a form which would seem to 
have preceded that which it bears in the Anglo- 
saxon ; but, considering the time when our Anglo- 
saxon vocabularies were compiled, and from what 
materials, it cannot be supposed they comprehend 
all the language. Smother-an was probably never 
lost, though only the contracted form smor-an 
chanced to occur in the Anglosaxon books which 
are extant. See Bother, p. 60. 

7. To whimper (German icimmer-n), from to 
whine, German wan-en ? 

Quhimperaxd with mony quhine. 

Sir David Lindsay. 
Yet with main strength his strokes he drew, 
And o'er the lake the shallop flew ; 
With heads erect, and whimpering crv. 
The hounds behind their passage pi v. 

Sir W. Scott. 

8. To sauxter, "to wander about idly, to 
" loiter, to linger," Johnson. He derives it from 
alkr a la sainte terre, " from idle people who roved 
" about the country, and asked charity, under 
" pretence of going a la sainte terre, or the holy 
" land;" but saunter is not a French word, nor 
sainte terre English. Perhaps it is allied to the 
German saum-eiu to delay, procrastinate, &c. 

9. To pother, from to poke, to stir, pokder, 
pother, to stir much or make a great stir ? 

10. " To clutter,*' says Dr. Jamieson, 
" although Johnson gives no etymology, is pro- 
" bably from Teutonic kloter-en, kleuter-en. tudi- 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 57 

" tare, pultare, pulsare crebro ictu ; Kilian" It 
might be derived from the Scottish word to clout, 
i. e. to strike or thump. 

Some of these may be otherwise formed ; it is 
no more to be supposed, that all our verbs ending 
in ER are frequentatives, than that all Latin verbs 
ending with TO, SO, or ITO, are so. 

XXXVIII. Obsolete frequentative verbs. 

1. Slittered, of slit. 

His body was clad full richely, 
Wrought was his robe in straung egise, 
And all to-slittered for queintise 
In many a place, lowe and hie. 

Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose, fol. 120. 
p. 1. col. 2. 

2. Smottrit, BESMOTTRIT. 

His smottrit habit. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 173. 1. 47. 

Sordidus in the original. 

Of fustyan he wered a gippon 

All besmottred with his haubergion, 

For he was late come from his viage. 

Chaucer, The Prologues of the Canterbury Tales. 

With that wourd 
His face he schew besmottrit for ane bourde, 
And all his membris in mude and dung bedoyf. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 139. 1. 30. 

It is formed from the Anglosaxon smyt-an and 
besmyt-an, maculare, inquinare, preterite and past 
participle smote or smut, whence smut, any thing 
or something foul or polluted in corn, language, &c. 

3. Spynnerand, from spynnand. 



58 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

Under thy gard to schip we us addres 
Over spynnand many swelland seyis salt. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 72. 1. 46. 

" Spynnand, running, gliding : by a meta- 
phor taken from spinning, as swepit, and raik, by 
the same author." — Ruddiman. 

Ane vther part syne zounder mycht thou se, 
The heirdys of hartis wyth thare hedis hie, 
Overspynneraxd wyth swyft course the plane vale, 
The hepe of dust upstourand at thare tale 
Fleand the houndis, — 

Ibid. p. 105. 1. 14. 

Explained, " running or flying swiftly : vox at 
" videtur a sono conficta, aut uti preced." — 

Ruddiman. 

4. Lopperaxi). 

Mydway betwix the vther stories sere, 

The swelland seis figure of gold clere 

Went flowand, but the LOP PER AH D wallis quhite 

War pouderit ful of fomy froith mylk quhite. 

G. Douglass Virgil, p. 267. 1.4.3. 
Nor zit na land birst lippering on the wallis, 
Bot quhare the flude went styl, and calmyt al is. 

Ibid.' p. 325. 1.51. 

This appears to be a frequentative of to leap, in 
Scotch to loup or lop, — wallis (waves) often leap- 
ing up white. Is not this better than deriving the 
word from leper, and supposing the sense to be, — 
white water of broken waves, or on the tops of 
waves, in allusion to the white scabs of a leper ! 
Or the other conjecture in the glossary, that the 
word comes from lapper (said to be sometimes 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 59 

written lopper) to curdle, " as if the sea were 
" curdled." 

5. To hilter, a frequentative of the old 
English to hil, Anglosaxon hel-an or hyl-an, celare, 
operire, tegere ; or of to hilt (from the same), 
which is used in Chatterton's Rowley in the 
same sense. 

The merkye seesonne wylle your bloshes hylte. 

Rowley. 
When from the sea arist in drear arraie, 
A hepe of cloudes of sable sullen hue, 
The which full past unto the woodlands drewe, 
Hilt ring attenis the sun's fetive face. 



Difficile ys the penaunce, yette I'll strev 

To keep my woe behiltren yn mie breaste. 



Ibid. 



Ibid. 



6. H. Tooke, " In King Lear (Act II. sc. 1.) 
" Edmund says of Edgar, 

Gasted by the noise I made, 
Full suddenly he fled. 

" Gasted, i. e. made agast : which is again a 
" verb built on the participle aghast. This pro- 
" gressive building of verb upon verb is not an 
" uncommon practice in language. 

" In Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit at several 
" Weapons (Act II.), Sir Gregory Fopp 

A witless lord of land, 
" says of his clown, 

If the fellow be not out of his wits, then will I never have any 
more wit whilst I live ; either the sight of the lady has gastered 
him, or else he's drunk. 



60 AN ESSAY ON EXGLISH VERBS. 

" I do not bring this word as an authority, nor 
" do I think it calls for any explanation. It is 
" spoken by a fool of a fool ; and may be sup- 
" posed an ignorantly coined or fantastical word ; 
" or corruptly used for gasted." — Div. of Pur ley, 
vol. i. p. 460. 

Had the ingenious author remarked the number 
of words in our language of a similar coinage, and 
the effect of the termination ER, he would not 
have spoken of gastered in this manner. In 
the passage quoted, it means so much made aghast 
or gasted, that the person spoken of appeared to 
be out of his wits. The word is " coined, w agree- 
ably to analogy, in whatever repute it may stand, 
of which usage is the sole criterion. 

XXXIX. Scotch frequentative verbs. 

Besides some already mentioned, there are a 
few others that belong more particularly to the 
Scottish dialect. 

1. To bother. 

Bode or bod are used by old authors as the past 
tense and past participle of the Anglosaxon 
bidd-an, orare, to bid, to invite, to solicit, to re- 
quest, to pray. See Div. of Parky, vol. ii. 
p. 101.266. — and Chaucer, passim. Hence to 
bother, to entreat much or often, to tease with 
entreaty, to importune, and afterwards losing sight 
of the etymology, to tease in any manner. 

Dr. Jamieson, " to tease one by dwelling on the 
" same subject, or by continued solicitation" 

The common preterite of to bid now in use is 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 61 

bade ; and it seems to confirm my etymology, that 
bather is another pronunciation of the frequen- 
tative, and the most common in the north. 

The auld guidmen, about the grace, 

Frae side to side they bother, 
Till some ane by his bonnet lays, 
And gi'es them 't like a tether, 
Fu' lang that night. 

Burns. 

Bother is also used as a noun (as many other 
verbs, frequentatives, as well as others, are), thus 
we say, "a great bother ; " but more commonly 
it is contracted " a great bo'er or bore." This 
contraction is similar to that of the Anglosaxon 
and old English other, vel, to or ; smother to smore, 
before mentioned ; and the old contraction of 
ivhether to wheer. 

Into Ermonie 

Sir, now longeth me ; 

Thider fare wil Y, 

Mi leve Y take of the ; 

To fight with Morgan in hy, 

To sle him other he me. 

Sir Tristram. 
Cherl go away, 
Other I schall the smite. 

Ibid. 

Why, then resolve me wheer you will or no. 

King Richard III. Act IV. Sc. 2. 

Whether is not this the sone of a carpenter ? wher his modir 
be not seid Marie : and his britheren James and Joseph, and 
Symount and Judas. And his sisters wher thei alle be not among 
us ? — Wiclif's New Testament, Matt.xiii. 

2. Foot (verb and noun) is in the Scotch pro- 



62 AN ESSAY OX ENGLISH VERBS. 

nunciation^Y. And in the north they talk of 
Jitting (footing) clothes, malt, &c. meaning to 
tread or trample on. Hence the frequentative 

" To fitter, v. a. To injure any thing by 
" frequent treading. Belgic vceter-en, to foot it, 
" Sewel. Hence fitterin, the noise made by fre- 
" quent and rapid motion of the feet." — Jamieson. 

3. Flood— is flowed, flow'd." — H. Tooke. 

And sens it rayned and al was in a fiode. 

Troylus, boke2. 

From to flood or flode is formed the frequen- 
tative 

" To flodder, flotter, v. a. 1. To overflow. 

The dolly dikis war al donk and wate, 
The low vales flodderit all wyth spate. 

G. Douglass Virgil, p. 201. 1. 2. 

2. "To blur, to disfigure in consequence of 
" weeping. It contains an allusion to the marks 
" left on the banks of a river by an inundation ; 
" synon. bluther. 

Wepand he went, for wo men mycht have sene, 
With grete teris flodderit his face and ene. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 363. 1. 16. 

Pallas lyfeless corps was lyand dede ; 
Quham ancient Acetas thare did kepe 
With flottrit berde of teris all bewepe. 

Ibid. p. 360. 1. 33. 

" This seems a frequentative from Dan. flyd-er, 
" to flow, to flow down, Suio-Gothic flod-a, to in- 
" undate, to overflow." — Jamieson. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 63 

Flodder is the only one of our frequentatives 
ending with ER, that I have found so designated 
by any preceding writer. The name has hitherto 
been rather loosely applied. See big, mur, yerk, 
quitter, in Jamieson's Dictionary ; and straggle in 
Johnson's. * 

4. To BICKER. 

Dr. Jamieson says, in Scotland this word does 
not merely signify " to fight, to skirmish, to fight 
" off and on," as it is defined in English Diction- 
aries. It also denotes, first, the constant motion 
of weapons of any kind, and the rapid succession 
of strokes in a battle or broil. See examples in 
his Dictionary. 

Under the name byk, he quotes a Belgic word 
bikk-en, to chop or beat, which may be the root. 

5. To fyke, to fidget, to busy one's self about 
a thing to no purpose. 

To ficker or ficher (omitted by Jamieson), 
a common word in the north, differs only in being 
more expressive or a stronger term. 

6. From "to sniff, to draw breath audibly 
" up the nose," preterite and past participle sniff 'd, 
snifft, is formed the frequentative, " to sniffter, 
" to draw up the breath frequently and audibly by 
" the nose." — Jamieson. 



* Since writing this (which was nine or ten years ago) I have seen " Eng- 
" lish Synonymes explained by George Crabbe," in which a few frequentative 
verbs are mentioned, " to falter or faulter, may be a frequentative of 
" to fall, signifying to stumble. Wander, in German wandern, is a fre- 
" quentative of wend-cn, to turn., signifying to turn frequently. Waver is a 
" frequentative of to wave," &c. He reckons the following also frequenta- 
tives, to fondle, weary, struggle, usurp, begin, niggardly, &c. 



64 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS, 

7. To nicher or nicker, does not differ in 
meaning from to neigh, Anglosaxon hnceg-an, from 
which it is formed, but by means of the fre- 
quentative termination, it is perhaps more expres- 
sive of the broken tremulous noise it denotes. 

8. From the Anglosaxon slaw-ian, piger esse, 
slawode, piger erat, Lye, to slow, slowd, — we " have 
" to slotter, to pass time idly or sluggishly." — 
Jamiesoji. Hence the English word slattern. 

Thou auld hasard leichoure, fy for schame, 
That sloiteris forth evermair in sluggardy. 

Douglas s Virgil, Prologue, p. 96. 1. 27. 

S lottery sleep the cousin of death. 

Ibid. p. 172. 1.52. 

9. "To hatter, v. a. To batter, to shatter; 
" as allied in sense to hew. 

Helmys of hard steill thai hatterit and heuch. 

Gaivan and Got. III. 5. 

" I know not if this be related to hader, Teu- 
" tonic, contention, hader-an, to quarrel, &c." — 
Jamleson. 

I think it is formed from to hit, the common 
preterite of which is still hat in the north of 
Scotland. 

In the English schip he lap, 
And hat the captaine sic ane flap 
Upon his heid till he fell down, 
Welterand intill ane deidlie swoun. 

Sir David Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 274. Chalmers s 
Edition. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 65 

I know not if the English verb to hatter is 
the same. 

Religion shows a rosy colour'd face, 

Not hatter'd out with drudging works of grace. 

Dry den, — Hind and Panther. 

10. To blether, blather, or bladder, to 
talk nonsensically. — Jamieson. 

Perhaps from the Anglosaxon hlid-an, tumul- 
tuari, strepere, clamare, hlydend, vociferans, gar- 
rulus, Lye: with the prefix BE. behlid-an, prete- 
rite behlade, behlader, bidder. 

Then in they go to see the show, 

On every side they 're gatherin, 
Some carrying dales, some chairs and stools, 
And some are busy bleth'rin 
Right loud that day. 

Burns. 

On a noisy Polemic. 

Below thir stanes lie Jamie's banes, 

O death, it's my opinion, 
Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin b — tch, 

Into thy dark dominion. 

Burns. 

11. To CLAVER. 

God sake, woman, let me away, — there's saxpence t'ye to buy 
half a mutchkin, instead of claverixg about thae auld warld 
stories. — Guy Mannering, vol. ii. p. 18. 

This seems to be the German klaff-en, inconsi- 
derate loqui (Jamiesori), with the frequentative 
termination, which expressing repetition or con- 
tinuance, makes the word more expressive to us 



66 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

than to claive would have been ; as for the same 
reason to pester, is a stronger term than to pest 
(French pest-er) would have been. 

Belinda. Prithee hold thy tongue — lard, he has so pestered 
me with flames and stuff. I think I shan't endure the sight of a 
fire this twelvemonth. — The Old Batchelor. 

12. To swatter, from to swap, swapt, swapter, 
swatter, 

" To swapp, means to fall down suddenly." — 
G. Chalmers Notes to Sir D. Lindsay. 

Syne flatlingis fell, and swappit into swoun. 

Sir D. Lindsay, vol. i. p. 295. 

Holidays and Sundays we play at nine pins, tumble upon the 
grass, laugh till we split, dance till we are weary, eat till we burst, 
drink till we are sleepy, then swap into bed, and snore till we 
rise to breakfast. — Vanburgk, — Esop. 

Birdis with mony ane piteous pew, 
Affeiritlye in the air they flew 
Sa lang, as they had strength to flee, 
Syne swatter it down into the see. 

Sir David Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 385. 

XL. To conclude : if a few of these verbs in 
ER which have been enumerated as frequenta- 
tives should seem to have little of the common 
character, they may still be allowed to have been 
formed in the way here suggested, and to be pro- 
perly etymologized. Neither have all verbs in 
LE a diminutive sense. That " there are few 
" rules without exceptions," is an observation, 
perhaps more applicable to language than to any 
other subject : " Non enim cum primum fingeren- 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 67 

" tur homines, analogia demissa coelo formam 
" loquendi dedit : sed inventa est postquam 
" loquebantur, et notatum in sermone quid quo 
" modo caderet, itaque non ratione nititur, sed 
" exemplo : nee lex est loquendi, sed observatio, 
" ut ipsam analogiam nulla res alia fecerit, quam 
" consuetudo. — Quintilian, Lib. I. cap. vi. 



f 2 



68 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 



CHAP. III. 

Of Verbs with the prefix BE. 

Perhaps we must refer for the etymology of 
this prefix to the Moeso- Gothic BI (our by), in the 
sense adversum, contra : — at least we can often 
discover this sense in our prefix ; but not always, 
and in the Moeso- Gothic, as we are told, by Mr. 
Lye, BI in composition has generally the import 
of Trspi, circum. Without, therefore, being posi- 
tive as to the origin of a word, or prefix of so great 
antiquity, I shall endeavour to point out and illus- 
trate its power in English verbs, which is of more 
consequence. 

The power of the prefix BE is for the most 
part to carry the action of the verb to some object 
acted on or affected, — to impart to the verb a 
transitive character. 1. Thus, this effect is suf- 
ficiently obvious in 

To bemoan, from to moan. 

To bedrop, from to drop. 

To bespit, from to spit. 

To bechance, from to chance. 

To bewail, from to wail. 

To besmoke, from to smoke. 

To be h owl, from to June I. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 69 

To belabour, from to lab our . 

To bestride, from to stride. 

To befall, from to fall. 

To berattle, from to rattle. 

To bespread, from to spread. 

Any of the primitives may be used without a 
noun in the accusative case following it, but when 
one uses bewail, bestride, belabour, &c. our atten- 
tion is directed through the action to some person 
or thing acted on, and we expect to be told what is 
bemoaned, bewailed, bedropped, &c. ; whom or what 
anything has befallen or bechanced: bi (adversum 
vel contra) whom or what the action of the verb 
tends or is directed. 

2. We strew leaves (or the material strewed) 
on the ground, floor, or whatever place or thing is 
bestrewed. 

We bestrew the ground, floor, or whatever is 
acted on or affected by the strewing, with leaves 
or whatever is strewed. 

To bestrew, qu. to strew, bi (adversum) the 
ground with leaves, &c. 

3. We seek anything from a person. 

We beseech a person (on whom the seeking 
acts or to whom it is applied) for favour or what- 
ever is sought, 

4. To belie, from to lie, means to lie upon, 
affect or injure with lies : to lie bi (adversum vel 
contra) a person, — ■" to calumniate or raise false 
<( reports of any one." Dr. Johnson gives this as 



70 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

the third sense of the word, I think it should have 
been given as the first. 

Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou beliest him, 
He never did encounter with Glendower. 

Shakespeare. 

More wives than one by Solomon were tried, 
Or else the wisest of mankind's belied. 

Pope. 

5. For the same reason, I think, he should have 
given as the first sense of to bespeak, " to speak 
" to or address," as that in which the analogy is 
most obvious. 

While on a bank reclined of rising green, 

Thus, with a frown, the king bespoke his queen. 

Pope. 

6. To witch, Anglosaxon wicc-ian, veneficiis in- 
dulgere. 

Such tales their cheer at wake or gossiping, 
When it draws near the witching hour of night. 

Blair s Grave. 

To bewitch, to affect or hurt a person by 
witching or witchcraft. To witch bi (adversum 
vel contra) any one. 

7. To BESPOT. 

Bespotted, having spots produced or caused 
by something external. Spotted, by nature, 
marked with spots, or the spots from the sub- 
stance of the thing spotted. Johnson quotes : 

Mildew rests on the wheat, bespottixg the stalks with a dif- 
ferent colour from the natural. — Mortimer. 

Bespotted and spotted, if nicely distinguished. 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS 71 

differ as turbatus and turbidus, raptus and rapidus, 
&c. But it is not meant to be asserted that this 
distinction is always observed. 

8. So wet and bewet. 

Her napkin with his true tears all bewet, 
Can do no service in her sorrowful cheeks. 

Shakespeare. 

9. To WEEP TO BEWEEP. 

It cannot be ; for he bewept my fortune 

And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs, 

That he would labour my delivery. 

King Richard III. Act I. Sc. 4. 

I have bewept a noble husband's death. 

Ibid. Act III. Sc. 2. 

Than Eroude seyinge that he was disseyved of the astrono- 
my ens was full wrooth, and he sent and slough alle the children 
that weren in Bethleem, and in alle the coostis thereof fro two 
yeer age and withy nne, after the time he hadde enquerid of the 
astronomy ens. Thanne it was fulfilled that was seid by Jeremye 
the prophete seiynge. A voice was herd, an high weepynge, 
and myche weilynge. Rachel by weepynge her sonnes and 
sche wolde not be comfortid for thei ben not. — Wiclif's New 
Testament, Matt. ii. 

10. To bereave, from the Anglosaxon reaf-an, 
spoliare, the Scotch to reif. 

A Scotchman speaks of robbers entering a house 
to reif their property from the inhabitants. If he 
uses the word bereave, he must alter the con- 
struction, and say to bereave the inhabitants 
(those affected by the reifing) of their property. 

11. To BESPATTER, BESPRINKLE, BESLUBBER, 

imply that something is spattered, slubbered, or 
sprinkled upon or against, — adversum. 



72 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

So TO BEDABBLE. 

Behold now with these blood bedabbl'd hands, 
I tremble in the presence of her corpse. 

City of the Plague. 

We sprinkle water or any liquid on the 
ground — -besprinkle water — would not be so 
proper : although to sprinkle the ground, &c. with 
water, be as correct an expression as to besprinkle. 

It would not appear that H.Tooke had re- 
marked the effect of the prefix BE, or he would 
not have said " to bellow, (i.e. to be- low) differs 
" no otherwise from to low, than as besprinkle 
" differs from sprinkle, &c." — Div. of Parley, 
vol. ii. p. 39. 

12. To think — to bethink one's self. 
To stir — to bestir one's self. 

To betake one's self. 
With the prefix, these verbs must be followed 
by an accusative case, or object acted on ; and 
thus are put in the form of reflected verbs. 

13. It must be observed, however, that most 
verbs which are used in a transitive sense with the 
prefix, may be so used without it. The differ- 
ence is that with the prefix, we instantly feel that 
the sense is transitive. And some verbs with it 
are peculiarly so. Thus to spread (as to spread 
ashes on the ground) is a transitive verb in the 
common acceptation of the word: to bespread 
is more peculiarly so, being applied not to what 
is spread, but what is affected or acted on by that 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 73 

which is spread, to bespread the ground with 
ashes, &c. 

14. The German belager-n, to beleager is 
from lager -n, to prepare a camp, to encamp. BE 
carries the meaning to something affected by the 
action of lager-n, — to beleager a city, &c* 

15. He rhymes, — he berhymes: after the 
latter word the subject must be mentioned. 

Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in : Laura to 
his lady, was but a kitchen wench ; marry, she had a better love 
to berhyme her. — Romeo and Juliet. 



* For further illustration of the effect of the prefix BE, 1 subjoin a few 
more examples from the German, taking the explanations from Rabenhorst's 
Dictionary, edited by G. H. Noehden. 

Fliessen, to flow. 

Befliessen, to flow upon or touch flowing. 

Geke?i, to go. 

Begehen, to go over a place, 

Glanzen, to shine. 

Beglanzen, to shed a splendour over a thing. 

Jagen, to hunt. 

Bejagen, to hunt a place, to practise the chace in any place. 

Lac hen, to laugh. 

Belachen, to laugh at. 

Reissen, to travel, 

Bereissen, to travel to, to travel over, to visit as a traveller. 

Sehen, to see. 

Besehen, to look at. 

Scheine?i, to shine. 

Beschei?ien, to shine upon. 

Stehlen, to steal. 

Bestehlen, to rob. 

Kiissen, to kiss. 

Bekiissen, to load with kisses. 

Ch-aben, to dig. 

Begraben, to inter, to bury. 

So in the Anglosaxon del/an, fodere, bedelfan, sepelire. 

Fliegen, to fly. 

Befliegen, to fly upon, to light upon. 

Beflogen, adj. fledged. 
Wundern, to wonder. 

Bewundern, to admire. 



74 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

16. The effect of the prefix may be felt by ap- 
plying it to verbs, which do not customarily re- 
ceive it. 

To reik, to bereik. 

To scribble, to bescribble. 

To scatter, to bescatter, used by Spenser. 

To speir (Scotch), to enquire, Anglosaxon, spyr- 
ian, vestigare, scrutari. 

To bespeir, to find out a person or thing by 
speiring: Anglosaxon bespyr-ian ex vestigiorum 
notis deprehendere. 

To sink, to besink ; Anglosaxon besincan, ab- 
sorbere. 

To dip, to bedip. The former may be intran- 
sitive, the latter cannot, or only as a reflected 
verb, to bedip one's self. Anglosaxon bedypan, 
mergere, intingere. 

To swink, to beswink, Anglosaxon beswbic-an, 
laborem alicui rei impendere. 

To step, to bestep, Anglosaxon bestaepan, calcare. 

To wind, to bewind, as to bewind a ball with 
thread, Anglosaxon bewindan, Mceso- Gothic bi- 
wandan, involvere. 

17. To wave, to bewave, Scotch, " to cause 
" to wander or waver." — Jamieson. 

Behaldand the large sie, 
Gyf ony schip tharon, micht be persavit, 
Quhilk late before the windis had bewavit. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 18. 1.41. 

18. There are a good many verbs formed from 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 75 

nouns with BE, all having an active or transitive 
import, to bedew, bemire, bespice, besot, &c. 

19. Belated is derived from the Anglosaxon 
latian, tardare, cunctari. 

20. BE is principally useful to be prefixed to 
verbs, which without it are most frequently used in 
a neuter or intransitive sense. Prefixed to verbs 
which were transitive before, it seems sometimes 
to make them imply much or excess, — beloved, 
to bedeck, to begrudge, to betoss, to be- 
thump, to bestain, to besmear. so hi 
German behissen, to load with kisses, to bekiss. 

But who is this, what thing of sea or land, 

Female of sex it seems, 

That so bedeck'd, ornate and gay, 

Comes this way sailing 

Like a stately ship. 

Milton. 

21. In one instance BE seems equivalent to 
nepi f circum : tobeset, i.e. to set guards, soldiers, 
or others about a person or place. And it may be 
thought to have the same import in besiege and 
beleager. 

22. Mr. Lye observes, that the Anglosaxon 
prefix GE had sometimes the effect of cum in the 
Latin : so conspuere, to bespue, or bespit, con- 
spergere to besprinkle. 

23. But though BE generally imparts a transi- 
tive character to verbs, there are exceptions — -to 
believe (of which afterwards), to become, to 




76 AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 

BEGIN, TO BEHEAD*, TO BETRAY, TO BEHOLD, 

to belong. The effect of the prefix is not, I 
think, perceptible in these. 

Nor in to breathe, which seems clearly to be 
a contraction of be-oreth-ian, from the Anglosaxon 
oreth-ian, of the same import. 

To the nouns which H. Tooke has enumerated 
as being only third persons of the indicative of 
verbs, * ' g i r t h what girdeth , war m t h what 
warmeth, &c." he might have added breeze, i. e. 
breathes, quod spirat, — at least he has not given 
any more plausible instance of this mode of deri- 
vation ; and he might have noted, that the Italian 
brezza, and French brise, are undoubtedly from 
the same root. 

To believe, is from the Anglosaxon leaf -an, 
lef-an, or lyf-an, credere, permittere, Lye. We 
often say we admit, grant or allow, a thing, when 
it would be the same to say we believe it. The 
substantive leave is from the same root. To be- 
lieve (qu. beleave) is explained by Johnson, " to 
" credit upon the authority of another, or from 
" some other reason than our personal know- 



" ledge, 



Ten thousand things there are which we believe merely upon 
the authority or credit of those, who have spoken or written of 
them. — Watts' Logic. 

To allow (and the French alloutr), is probably 



* Contrary to analogy, behead is used only in a privative sense 



AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH VERBS. 77 

a corruption of the same Anglosaxon verb with the 
prefix A, alief-an, concedere, permittere. And by 
the same prefix, we find the connexion of the 
English verbs to seek, and to ask, the Anglo- 
Saxon sec-an, with the prefix is asec-an, con- 
tracted as'c-an. 

24. To bequeath, Anglosaxon becwaeth-an, 
legare, is from cwaeth-an, dicere, qu. to be-say or 
declare property to any one. Before writing came 
to be so common an acquirement, a person's testa- 
ment or will was naturally enough called, what it 
must often have been, his quithe (Anglosaxon), or 
declaration how he wished his property bestowed 
after his death. 

25. To bestow, from to stow or place, Anglo- 
saxon, " stow, locus, unde verbale nostrum, to 
" stow, vel bestow" i. e. " collocare, sive in loco 
" ponere." — Lye. 

26. To defile is a corruption of to beftle, 
Anglosaxon befyl-an, afyl-an, gefyl-an, contami- 
nare, polluere, Scotch to file. 

27. From the Anglosaxon spraeng-an, spreng-an, 
spargere, aspergere, inspergere, we have the dimi- 
nutive to sprinkle, and besprinkle, and the 
past participle besprent. 

This evening late, by then the chewing flocks 
Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb 
Of knot-grass dew besprent, and were in fold, 
I sat me down to watch upon a bank 
With ivy canopied, &c. 

Milton's Comus. 




PART II. 



Credunt homines rationem suam verbis imperare, sed fit etiam, ut verba vim 
suam super rationem retorqueant. — Bacon. 



81 



NOTES, 

Written on Perusal of The Diversions of Purley. 



I. " But (as distinguished from Bot) and 
"without have both exactly the same meaning, 
" that is, in modern English, neither more nor less 
"than — Be-out:' — Vol. i. page 215. 

It is not improbable that Sed the corresponding 
conjunction in Latin had a similar origin ; and is 
the imperative of an obsolete compound of Do, 
sed-ere, (se dare) to put aside, to separate, in the 
imperative sede, contracted sed. 

II. " Head, — as heaved, heav'd, the past parti- 
" ciple of the verb to heave : meaning that part 
" (of the body or any thing else) which is heaved 
" raised or lifted up above the rest. In Edward the 
" Third's time it was written Heved." — Vol. ii. 
page 39. 

Similar to this is the Anglosaxon Br ear d sum- 
mum, the top, qu. bereard from to rear : and per- 
haps it is still used in the primary sense in the 
Scotch word breard or braird, which signifies 
corn of any kind, or any thing else, that had been 

G 



82 NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 

sown or planted, and is bereard or sprung up 
through the ground. 

III. According to H. Tooke's system, thread 
may be supposed to be the past participle Thre-ed 
of the Anglosaxon verb thre-an, thraw-an, cris- 
pare, torquere, circumrotare, vexare, to twist or 
twine: and the ' subaudition' is flax, wool, Sec. 
Thraw-an (to thraw) is not obsolete in Scotland ; 
and the rustic instrument for twining straw ropes 
is there called a thraw-crook. 

In like manner teat may be supposed to be 
the past participle of the Anglosaxon Tiht-an 
trahere, ducere, solicitare, provocare, To draw, tug 
(dug), pull, solicit, Sec. 

IV. " Old, eld. By the change of the cha- 
" racteristic I or Y, is the past tense and past 
" participle of the Anglosaxon verb Ild-an, Yld-an, 
" to remain, to stay, to continue, to last, to endure, 
" to delay, morari, cunctari, tardare, differre. 
" And this verb (though now lost to the language) 
" was commonly used in the Anglosaxon with that 
" meaning, without any denotation of long anti- 
" quity, as we now say — a week old, two days 
" old, but a minute old.*' — Vol. ii. page 198. 

He might have made young, Anglosaxon 
ge-ong, also a past participle from ean-ian, ge- 
ean-ian parturire, to yean, to bring forth 

My feeble goats 
With pains I drive from their forsaken cotes ; 
And this, yon see, I scarcely drag along, 
Who, yeaning, on the rocks has left her young. 

Dry dens Virgil. 



NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 83 

V. " Sale, handsel, is the past participle 
" of sylan dare, tradere, to sell. In our modern 
" use of the word a condition is understood. 
" Handsel is something given in hand." — Vol. ii. 
page 273. 

This etymology of Handsel (adopted from Bai- 
ley) might be received, if the word meant earnest ; 
but as it signifies the first money got in selling, or 
the first act of using any thing, the etymology is 
not satisfactory. 

I shall offer another conjecture, suggested by a 
way of using the word, perhaps obsolete in some 
places, but common in the North of Scotland. I 
have there heard it urged by a purchaser cheapen- 
ing the first of any commodity for sale — ■" Many 
" a one has been the better for my handsel,'" 
" many have owned that they have thriven on 
" my handsel — that my handsel has lucked with 
" them," &c. 

Qu. Hand's seile or hand's luck ? The luck or 
seile of the hand giving the first money, — similar 
perhaps to the notion which gave rise to Luckpenny. 
As great stress was laid on the first foot, i. e. the 
first person met in setting out on a journey, some 
being regarded as more fortunate to meet than 
others*, so in bargain-making it was natural to 



*"I pede fausto," — " adsis pede secundo." The superstition of a happy 
foot is not yet obsolete. 

G 2 



84 NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 

speak of the hand's seile, that gave the first 
money. 

The fader Eneas astonyst wox sum dele, 
Desinis this sing suld betakin sele, 

His hands baith vphevis towart the hevyn, 

* * * 

O Jupiter * * 

Gif ony thyng behind zit dois remane, 

Wyth this zour happy takin auguriane, 

Zeild us zour plesand rest syne and ferme pece, 

Mak end of al zour harmes, and caus thame ceis. 

G. Douglas's Virgil, fol. 476. 1. 36. 

VI. " Truth is the third person singular of 
" the indicative Trow. It was formerly written 
" Troweth, Trowth, Trouth, and Troth. And it 
" means (aliquid, any thing, something) that which 
" one troweth, i. e. thinketh or firmly belie veth. 
" True as we now write it ; or trew as it was 
1 ' formerly written; means simply and merely — 
" that which is trowed. 

" That every man in his communication with 
" others, should speak that which he troweth is of 
" so great importance to mankind, that it ought 
" not to surprize us, if we find the most extra va- 
" gant praises bestowed upon truth. But truth 
" supposes mankin d ; far whom and by whom alone 
" the word is framed, and to whom only it is ap- 
" applicable. If no man, no truth. There is 
" therefore no such thing as eternal, immutable, 
" everlasting truth, unless mankind, such as they 
" are at present, be also eternal, immutable, and 
" everlasting. Two persons may contradict each 
" other, and yet both speak truth : for the truth 



NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF FURLEY. 85 

" of the one may be opposite to the truth of 
" another. To speak truth may be a vice as well 
u asa virtue : for there are many occasions where 
" it ought not to be spoken." — Vol. ii. p. 402-3-8. 

As we do not know that words are used by any 
other beings but man, we may say of every other 
word as well as truth, that it supposes mankind, 
t( for whom and by whom alone the word is formed." 
He adds, " and to whom only it is applicable." Is 
this a deduction from the premises, that is, because 
the word was formed for and by man alone ? Then 
the same will hold of every other word, and we 
may say — If no man, no Earth ; if no man, no 
God : for Earth and God suppose mankind, for 
whom and by whom alone " the words" are form- 
ed, and to whom only they are therefore appli- 
cable. 

Or is it because man alone can trow, that Truth 
is applicable to mankind only ? Why may not 
other beings trow as well as man ? Or who has 
a right to say that they can or cannot ? If they 
can, there may be Truth (troweth) or belief, (sup- 
posing the word to have no other meaning, ) 
" though men were none." 

I do not mean to dispute Mr. Tooke's etymology 
of Truth, or to say that the word is never used in 
that which, according to him, is its only sense : 
but how often does it happen that the whole, or 
the precise meaning of a word, cannot be ascer- 
tained from its etymology ? Suppose a foreigner 
were made acquainted with all the Anglosaxon 



86 NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 

and English verbs, and their participles, illustrated 
in the second volume of The Diversions of Purley, 
and were told that their past participles are used 
as nouns in English : in how many cases would it 
be impossible for him to guess, to what " sub- 
" audition" use had limited or appropriated them? 
For instance, how could he divine, that hearse, 
the past participle of " hyrstan, ornare, phalerare, 
" decorare," was applicable to an ornamented car- 
riage but not to an ornamented lady, and to an 
ornamented carriage for the dead, not for the liv- 
ing ? That he must say a person's drift, not his 
drove, in an argument ; since both these words are 
past participles of the same verb to drive ? That 
Field (felled) must be applied not to the trees that 
have been felled, but to the land where they 
grew? &c. 

It cannot then be said, on the strength of Ety- 
mology, that any word means, " simply and mere- 
ly," what its origin or analogy may suggest. Mr. 
Tooke had told us a little before, that " the winds 
" as well as colours must have their name from 
" some circumstances attending them ; " but did 
not assert that they meant simply and merely those 
circumstances, that south was merely seething, 
&c. It is not with regard to sensible objects, that 
there is much danger of our being misled by Ety- 
mology : we have there better guides, and trust 
little to its glimmering light. It is in " the dim 
" discover'd tracts of mind," that there is any 
danger of our trusting too much to it ; although it 



NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PU11LEY. 87 

is there that etymology least deserves to be trusted 
to, because the language employed on intellectual 
subjects is mostly, if not altogether, figurative. 

Truth and Belief are connected somewhat as 
danger and fear: truth when we know it producing 
belief; as danger produces fear, where we may be 
affected by the contingent evil. There may be 
danger where there is no fear, because the danger 
is not known ; and there may be fear where danger 
is not, but is thought to be. It is the same with 
truth and belief. It is not uncommon in conver- 
sation to hear it said, " There is no fear," when 
the meaning is, there is no danger — a mode of 
expression exactly similar to calling truth belief 
or troweth, putting the effect for the cause. Other 
instances of the same trope will readily occur, as 
complaint or disease for bodily disorder or malady, 
Laus for virtus, "sunt sua praemia laudi" ; Dearth * 
for scarcity, &c. 

I therefore think Mr. Tooke's etymology of 
Truth and True sufficiently probable : but his con- 
clusion, that True is simply and merely what is 
trowed, is no wise superior to this, that danger is 
simply and merely what is feared ; or that a sick 
man's complaint is merely his cries and groans ; 
South merely seething, what seeths or is seethed. 



* I have been led to some results, which may possibly be considered as 
worthy of record in the present dearth of our knowledge in this branch of 
science. — Journal of the Sciences and Arts, No. xi. Oct. 1818. 

The ideas of Benefits and Obligations are so closely connected, that to do 
a man a kindness, and to oblige him, are used promiscuously as expressions of 
the same signification.— Balgui/s Tracts, p. 113. 



88 NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 

The application of the same name, to the qualities 
in bodies which we call Heat and Cold, and to 
the sensations excited by them, is perhaps an 
instance of the same trope or figure of speech : as, 
indeed, a conclusion has been drawn from it, very 
similar to that which Mr. Tooke draws from his 
etymology of the word Truth — That the words 
Heat and Cold denote simply and merely sensa- 
tions ; and, consequently, if there were no man or 
sentient being, there could be neither Heat nor 
Cold. 

But though the supposed etymological is not 
the only sense of the word, it is not disputed that 
instances may still be found, where Truth is used 
to denote simply and merely belief. Perhaps the 
following is one : 

Naie old chorle, by God thou shalt not so, 
Saied these other hazardours anon, 
Thou partest not so lightly by sainct Ihon. 
Thou spakest right now of thilke traitor Death, 
That in this countrey all our frendes slaeth. 
Have here my trowth thou art his espie 
Tell where he is, or else thou shalt die. 

Chaucer.— The Pardoners Tale, fol. 65. p. 2. col. 1. 

Speaking according to one's belief is by Locke 
called Moral Truth. 

w Besides Truth taken in the strict sense before 
" mentioned, there are other sorts of truths ; as, 
" 1. Moral Truth, which is speaking of things 
" according to the persuasion of our own minds, 
" though the proposition we speak agree not to 
M the reality of things," &c. 



NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 89 

But this is rather a consideration in Ethics than 
a question in Philology. When a man speaks as 
he believes — though erroneously, he is blameless, 
and we may not apply the harsh epithet false to 
his testimony : but it would be an unparalleled 
abuse of words, to say he was speaking truth. 

That two persons may contradict each other 
and yet both speak truth, is a discovery which, 
I doubt not, has surprised many readers of Home 
Tooke's work. * But it is only changing the 
meaning of a word, — and in this way a child may 
make any number of paradoxes. 

" Mihi non invenuste dici videtur, aliud esse 
" Latine, aliud Grammatice loqui," says Quin- 
tilian, alluding to some difficulties and false refine- 
ments of the grammarians of his day ; and if our 
etymologists will allow the word Truth to have no 
other meaning but belief, it may well be said, 
Aliud est Anglice, aliud etymologice loqui. The 

* Croaker. — Then you are of my opinion ? 
Honeywood. — Entirely. 
Mrs. Croaker. — And you reject mine ? 

Honeywood. — Heavens forbid, Madam. No sure, no reasoning can be more 
just than yours. 

Mrs. Croaker. — O, then, you think I am quite right ? 
Honeywood. — Perfectly right. 

Croaker. — A plague of plagues, we can't be both right. 
My hat must be on my head or my hat must be off. 

The Good-Natured Man, Act. iv. 

According to Mr. Tooke, Mrs. Croaker might tell her husband his hat was 
on his head, and his friend Honeywood contradict her, and say it was off ; and 
yet both might be speaking truth. 

Frelon. — Qu'est-ce, apres tout, que la verite" ? la conformity a nos idees : 
or ce qu'on dit est toujours conforme al'idee qu'on a quand on parle ; ainsi 
iln'y a point proprement de mensonge. 

Lady Alton. — Tu me parais subtil : il semble que tu aies etudie" a Saint 
Oiner. 

Voltaire s Ecossaise, Act. I J. se. IV. 



90 NOTES ON THE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. 

remark will apply to several other explanations of 
words given in The Diversions of Purley, as of 
Hell, Guilt, Just, Right, 8§c. 

VII. Dr. Jamieson, and Mr. Lye, whom he 
follows, derive threshold or threshwald, 
Anglosaxon Threscwald, " from thresc-an ferire and 
" wald lignum, i. e. the wood which one strikes 
" with one's feet in entering or going out of a 
house." But — pace hominum eruditissimorum — 
I cannot help thinking strike-wood, struck-wood, or 
thresh } d- wood, no very probable designation for 
what one never strikes or threshes but inadvert- 
ently. Threxwald and threes wald were other 
forms of the word in the Anglosaxon ; and perhaps 
it is rather from thure or thurruke, i. e. door (see 
Diversions of Purley, vol. i. p. 336) and wald lig- 
num, Thure s-wa Id or Thurruke s-wald januae lig- 
num, the wood, board, or plank, of the door-way, 
which we cross in entering ; in the cottages of the 
poor, generally the lower part of the wooden frame 
that holds the door. In Scotland, it is now often 
called the door-stane: in German, it is thursehwelle, 
from thur door, and sc hive lie the sole or sill. Dure 
and Thure were used indifferently in the Anglo- 
saxon, and Chaucer has both Dressholde and 
Thressholde : 

And as she would over the dressholde gon 
The Marques came, and gan her for to call. 
And she sette down her water potte anon 
Beside the thressholde of the ox stall, 
And down upon her knees she gan to fall. 

The Clerke of Oxenfordes Tale, fol. 45. p. 2. col. i. 



91 



On H. Tooke* s List of Past Participles. 



A great object in the formation of language 
seems always to have been, to make it easily at- 
tainable or intelligible ; it being so contrived that 
one word, when known, generally helps to explain 
several others. Derivative as well as Figurative 
terms must be accounted for partly on this prin- 
ciple. For instance, roof, according to Mr. 
Tooke, is the Anglosaxon hrof and the past parti- 
ciple of raefnan sustinere, to sustain. The cir- 
cumstance of the roof being sustained or borne up, 
would make this name more easily understood 
(while raefnan continued in use) than an arbitrary 
sound, expressing no circumstance of the thing 
designated, would have been. But other circum- 
stances might have been taken advantage of for 
the same purpose, as its covering the house : thus 
the corresponding word in Latin is tectum, from 
tegere to cover. 

The number of nouns which Mr. Tooke shews 
to have been originally " past participles," has 
perhaps surprized most readers of his book ; and, 
with the derivatives otherwise formed from verbs, 



92 h. tooke's past participles 

they might lead to a supposition, that verbs must 
have been invented before nouns, were not both 
these parts of speech equally necessary in every 
sentence. The fact is, after a certain number of 
arbitrary words or roots are established, new 
names when wanted (that they may be more easily 
understood) are made from those old words : some 
striking circumstance, or characteristic mark, of 
the things to be named, being expressed by the 
derivative. And the most striking circumstance 
or distinguishing mark is, either, 1st, The powers, 
or 2dly, The accidents or affections of things — 
what they do, or what is done to them : which is 
expressed by verbs. Active powers are expressed 
by verbal nouns ending with ER, STER, ING, 
ANT, TH, &c. Passive nouns, or such as express 
what has been done, has happened, or may often 
happen to the things denoted, are generally past 
participles; as Z>tw;>, roof, shot, kc. 

But verbs are formed from nouns, as well as 
nouns from verbs ; and Mr. Tooke is too anxious 
to swell his list of " past participles." Such of 
them as have a passive sense will generally be al- 
lowed to be what he calls them, as drop (dripped, 
flood (flow'd), &c. ; such also as are distinguished 
by the participial terminations D, T, or EN, or 
the customary change of the characteristic vowel, 
and are clearly connected in meaning with the 
verb from which he derives them, although they 
may not have a passive sense ; as frost from fin ; t . 
&c. But we are diverted with his zeal for past 



h. tooke's past participles. 93 

participles, when he tells us, that green is the 
past particple of the Anglosaxon verb grenian, 
virescere ; smear the past participle of the An- 
glosaxon verb smyrian, ungere; sheen the past 
participle of the Anglosaxon verb scinan, splendere, 
fulgere; well the past participle of the Anglo- 
saxon verb villan, ebullire, effluere ; hinge the 
past participle of Hang; thack or thatch of 
thecan or thacan, tegere, &c. : especially when we 
observe that these nouns exist in the Anglosaxon, 
as well as the verbs, though Mr. Tooke gives the 
Anglosaxon form of the verb only, and not of the 
noun, in order (as it would seem) that the verb 
may appear the older word of the two. What 
more reason is there for saying the Anglosaxon 
smere (smear) comes from smyrian, grene (green) 
from grenian, than vice versa grenian from grene ? 
&c. . 



94 



On the words Right and Wrong, 



Mr. Tooke begins his account of these words 
strangely, by telling us he does not know what 
other people mean by them * ; as if it could be 
of much importance what he, or any individual, 
meant by them, if he meant not the same as other 
people do. And, if he has explained his meaning 
truly, I think it will not be doubted, that he did 
understand those words in a manner peculiar to 
himself. 

" Right is no other than rect-ww (regitum), 
" the past participle of the Latin verb regere, and 
" means ordered, commanded, or directed. 

" Thus when a man demands his right, he 
" asks only what it is ordered he shall have. 

" A right conduct is that which is ordered." 

"A right line is, that which is ordered or di- 
" rected — (not a random extension, but) the 
" shortest between two points. 



* H. — What do you mean by the words Right and WRONG . : 
F. — What do I mean by those words — what every other person means by 
them. 
//. — And what is that ? 
F. — Nay, you know that as well as 1 do. 
H. — Yes, but not better : and therefore not at all. — Vol. ii. p. 3. 



ON THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG. 95 

" The right road is, that ordered or directed 
" to be pursued for the object you have in view. 

" To do right is to do that which is ordered to 
" be done. 

** To be in the right is, to be in such situa- 
" tions or circumstances as are ordered. — ■ Vol. ii. 
p. 7—12. 

" Wrong — - is the past participle of the verb, 
" to wring, vringan, torquere. The word answer- 
" ing to it in Italian is torto, the past participle of 
" the verb torquere ; whence the French also have 
" tort. It means merely wrung or wrested from 
"the Right, or ordered — line of conduct." — 
Vol. ii. p. 89. 

Mr. Dugald Stewart quotes these passages in 
his Philosophical Essays, as an instance of the 
extravagance to which Mr. Tooke has carried his 
system; and observes, in a note (page 215, second 
edition) — " The application of the same word to 
" denote a straight line, and moral rectitude of 
" conduct, has obtained in every language I know; 
" and might, I think, be satisfactorily explained, 
" without founding the theory of morality upon a 
" philological nostrum concerning past participles." 

To trace the very different senses or applications 
of the word right from its primitive meaning, 
would be a task not unworthy of that distinguish- 
ed philosopher who has so successfully illustrated 
the "generalizations" of the terms beautiful 
and sublime. It is a task which I shall not 
attempt ; it will be sufficient here to observe, that 



96 ON THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG. 

straightness is aimed at in many works of art. In 
these, therefore, to be straight is often to be right 
in the secondary sense of the word.* A straight 
line has been said to be the line of business, and 
before the refinement of taste it was considered the 
line of beauty. 

We are told by Mr. Harris (in his Hermes, book 
iii. ch. 1. note c.) that " the original meaning of 
" the word YAH, was silva, a wood. Hence as 
" wood was perhaps the first and most useful 
" kind of Material, the word^YX*/, which denoted 
" it, came to be by degrees extended, and at 
" length to denote matter or materials in 
" general. In this sense Brass was called the f 'YX>j 
w or Matter of a statue ; Stone, the "YX>? or Matter 
"of a pillar ; and so in other instances. * * * 
" With philosophers every thing was called ''YXr;, 
" or Matter, whether corporeal or incorporeal, 
" which was capable of becoming something else, or 
u of being moulded into something else, whether 
" from the operation of Art, of Nature, or a higher 
" Cause. In this sense they not only called Brass 
" the 'YXrj of a statue, and Timber of a boat, but 
" letters and syllables they called the 'YXai of 



* We may account in the same manner for such expressions as these : — 
My Oetavia, 
Read not my blemishes in the world's report : 
I have not kept my s j m m re ; but that to come, 
Shall be done by rule. Cleopatra, Act. ii. K 

All have not offended ; 
For those that were, it is not square, to take 
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands 
Are not inherited. Timon ofjftAem, Act. 



ON THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG. 97 

" Words ; Words or simple Terms, the J Y\at of 
" Propositions; and Propositions themselves the 
" "YXat of Syllogisms." 

Nothing can be more analogous to the supposed 
transference of the word denoting straightness, 
which was right in many things, to denote right 
in general, and where straight and crooked had 
nothing to do. In the same manner the epithet 
sublime is applied to things which have nothing 
to do with height ; beautiful, to things that 
have nothing to do with colour or form ; sweet, 
to things not tasted, &c. 

That the original and literal meaning of the 
word right is not " ordered or commanded," but 
straight, appears not only from the circumstance 
mentioned by Mr. Stewart, that in many other, 
if not in all languages, the same word is employed 
to denote a straight line and moral rectitude, but 
from this, that the contrary term wrong, torto, 
cannot by any twisting be made to signify not 
ordered or directed. Besides we find the same 
allusion frequently made in unequivocal terms. 

Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum. 

Horat. 

The more I see the impossibility from the number and extent 
of his crimes, of giving equivalent punishment to a wicked man 
in this life, the more I am convinced of a future state, in which 
all that here appears wrong shall be set right, all that is crooked 
made straight. — Franklin's Letters. 

This wrong connexion in our minds of ideas in themselves 
loose and independent of one another, has such an influence, and 
is of so great a force to set us awry in our actions, as well moral 

H 



08 ON THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG. 

as natural, that perhaps there is not any one thing that deserves 
more to be looked after. — Locke. 

By this organ (the eye) we can often perceive what is straight 
and what is crooked, in the mind as well as the body. — Reid. 

Much of the soul they talk, but all awry. 

Milton . 
You married ones, 
If each of you would take this course, how many 
Must murder wives much better than themselves, 
For wrying but a little. 

Cymbeline, Act v. sc. 1 . 

Mr. Tooke may have been led to think the 
original meaning of Right was "ordered or com- 
manded," by the circumstance of our considering 
or talking of Morality as consisting in the obser- 
vance of certain rules ; it might perhaps be sug- 
gested to him by the following passage in Locke's 
Essay, of which work he was so great an admirer. 

" Whether the rule, to which as to a touchstone 
" we bring our voluntary actions to examine them 
" by and try their goodness, and accordingly 
" name them; whether, I say, we take that rule 
" from the fashion of the country, or the will of 
" a lawgiver, the mind is easily led to observe 
" the relation any action hath to it ; and to judge 
" whether the action agrees or disagrees with the 
" rule, and so hath a notion of moral goodness or 
" evil, which is either conformity or non-confor- 
" mity of any action to that rule : and therefore 
' ' is often called Moral Rectitude." — On Mural 
Relations. 



ON THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG. 99 

Though the word rectum signifies a right line, 
as well as right conduct or moral rectitude, I 
doubt whether our word right is derived from 
the Latin. First, Because it is not necessary to 
derive it from the Latin, for it may be regularly 
deduced from an Anglosaxon verb, as will after- 
wards be shewn; and there is no word in the 
speech of our Anglosaxon ancestors, so far as I 
know, that could supply its place. Secondly, 
Because it is a word our language has in common 
with the other dialects of the Gothic (Swedish, 
Dutch, and German, recht), which have little 
from the Latin ; while it has not passed to us 
through the medium of the French, the common 
channel in which Latin words have come to us. 

Straight (though omitted by H. Tooke) is 
clearly the past participle of the verb to stretch, 
Anglosaxon strecian, extendere. 

And lo oon of hem that weren with Ihesus streyghte out his 
honde, and drough out his swerd and smote the servaunt of the 
prince and prestis, and kitte of his eare. — Wiclifs Testament, 
Matthew xxvi. 

And these words said, she streyght her on length and rested 
a while. — Chaucer, Testament of Love. 

Right is the Anglosaxon reht or riht rec- 
tus, Justus. Ratio, jus, rectum. Recta linea, 
perpendiculum. — Lye. 

Its original meaning, straight (recta linea), ap- 
pears whenever it is applied to direction : — right 
forward, right across, upright, &c. 

The voys of a crier in desert, make ye redi the weye of the 
Lord, make ye his pathis right. — Wiclif's New Testament. 

H 2 



100 ON THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG. 

maeckt syne paden recht. * — Dutch. 

May it not be the past participle of the Anglo- 
saxon verb raec-an or rac-an (Maeso-Gothic 
rak-jan) extendere to stretch, of which the pre- 
terite was raehte, as Lye shows by many examples ? 

Raec-an is still a common word in the sense — 
porrigere — To reach (of which the old English 
preterite and past participle was raught); and, 
though not so common, it is not obsolete, in the 
sense to stretch or extend. Johnson quotes from 
Milton, 

He declared that whoever became a clergyman, must subscribe 
slave, and take an oath withal, which unless he took with a con- 
science that would retch, he must straight perjure himself. — 
Lives of the Poets. 

The Scotch verb to rax seems to be the same 
word t , and is, I think, used nearly as synony- 
mous with to stretch, though explained by Dr. 
Jamieson as limited in its application — " To reach 
" or extend the bodily members, as when fatigued 
" or awaking." 

The Latin verb regere (Greek opeyui) which, 
as we are told by Dumesnil, properly signifies to 
make straight, is clearly the same with the Anglo- 
saxon verb raec-an. 



* Da nun Mose seine hand recite nber das .Moor. — Gerwum Bible. 
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the soa. — E.vod. xiv. 21. 

t A conscience that will rax is a common expression. 

Ye who leather nut and draw. Burns. 

We use alsoRvKF., winch comes nearer the Andosaxon. 

Let me rfie up and dight that tear. Burns. 



ON THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG. 101 

Different etymologies have been given of the 
Latin noun ordo order, but none, that I have 
seen, possesses the least degree of probability : 
I think it is evidently from opOog straight, right. — 
We say indifferently to put things to rights, or to 
put them in order. It means right collocation, 
right succession of things one to another, right 
state, &c. 

Ordinem sic definiunt, compositionem rerum aptis et accom- 
modatis locis. — Cicero De Offic. Lib. i. cap. 40. 



102 



On some Diminutive Terminations. 



1. " The termination Ling," says Johnson, 
notes " commonly diminution, as kit ling, from 
" klein German, little." 

2. We have many diminutives in let, which 
seems to be the ancient lyt, little ; as streamlet, 
spikelet, hamlet, w'mglet, §c. 

3. The Scotch diminutive ie, Housie, Burnie, 
Laddie, 8$c. may be from the adjective wee, if it 
is not to be referred to the tenuity of the vowel 
(ee), which may have been thought peculiarly fit 
to express diminutiveness or smallness of size ; 
whence such diminutives as sip from sup, tip from 
top, click from clack, fyc. Je and Tie are dimi- 
nutive terminations in the Dutch likewise, as beek 
a brook, beekje a little brook or rill ; bok a goat, 
bokje a kid ; lap a patch, lapje a little patch ; been 
a bone, beentje a little bone, &c. 

4. I do not know the etymology of the diminu- 
tive termination ock*, /*///, hillock, and mention 



* We may have it from the Gaelic, where og or ag is a diminutive termina- 
tion. — Stcuart's Gaelic Grammar. 



ON SOME DIMINUTIVE TERMINATIONS. 103 

it only to observe, that it is more extensively used 
in the Scottish dialect : we have bittock, a little 
bit ; playok, a toy or worthless plaything ; 
brannok, the samlet; shillocks (Aberdeen- 
shire), light corn or shulls; yearok, a chicken 
not a year old, mostly used in the expression " a 
yearok's egg" ; fitchok, a small fitch or vetch ; 
mulok, a small mule or crumb ; Tibbie or 
Tibbok, a girl's name (Isabel) ; Davock or 
Davie. 

For men I've three mischievous boys 

Run deils for ranting and for noise ; 

A gadsman ane, a thresher t'other, 

Wee Davock hauds the nowt in fother. 

Burns. 
Pure claggokis cled in raploch quhite 
Quhilk hes skant twa markis for thair feis, 
Will have twa ellis beneth thair kneis ; 
Kittok, that clekkit was yestrene 
The morne will counterfute the quene ; 
And mureland Meg, that milkis the yowis, 
Clay git with clay above the howis, 
In barn, nor byir, scho will nocht byde, 
Without hir kirtill taill be syde, &c. 

Sir David Lindsay's supplication against Syde Taillis. 

By the way, is not clay, which Johnson de- 
rives from clai Welsh, rather from dag and an 
instance of G changed to Y, according to the 
practice so common in the language ? 

Perhaps the English word ruddock (rubecula 
the redbreast) is a diminutive in ock, qu. reddock. 

With fairest flowers, 
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave : Thou shalt not lack 



104 ON SOME DIMINUTIVE TERMINATIONS. 

The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 

The azur'd harebell, like thy veins ; no, nor 

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 

Out-sweeten'd not thy breath : the ruddock would, 

With charitable bill bring thee all this ; 

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, 

To wither round thy corse. 

Cymbeline, Act iv. sc. 2. 

In Morayshire, the Lapwing, that " clamorous 
bird," as Johnson describes it, is called the w al- 
loc k, qu. wawl or wail-ock. 

Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, 
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 

Goldsmith. 
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, 
The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death. 

Pope. 



105 



On Figurative Language, and on some Terms em- 
ployed to denote Soul or Spirit. 



SECTION I. — ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 



The only further hints I have to offer in etymo- 
logy, regard some names of the sou] ; but before 
proceeding to them, I shall premise a few ob- 
servations on the tropes, or transferences of words 
from their original to other meanings. It has been 
justly observed, that these tropes, though they were 
afterwards used to embellish speech, originated in 
its poverty, or in the want of proper terms ; as 
clothes were first put on to defend against the 
weather, and afterwards served also for ornament 
to the body. * 



* Tertius ille modus transferendi verbi late patet, quem necessitas genuit, 
inopifi, coacta et angustiis; post autem delectatio jucunditasque celebravit. 
Nam ut vestis frigoris depellendi causa reperta primo, post adhiberi coepta est 
ad ornatum etiam corporis et dignitatem : sic verbi translatio instituta est in- 
opiae causS., frequentata delectationis. Nam gemmare vites, luxuriem esse in 
herbis, etiam rustici dicunt. Quod enim declarari vix verbo proprio potest, id 
translato cum est dictum, illustrat id quod intelligi volumus, ejus rei, quam 
alieno verbo posuimus, similitude — Nihil est enim in rerum natura cujus nos 
non in aliis rebus possimus uti vocabulo et nomine : unde enim simile duci 
potest (potest autem ex omnibus) indidem verbum unum quod similitudinem 
continet, translatum, lumen affert orationi. — Cicero, De Oratore, Lib. iii. 
c. 155—161. 



106 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

Transferences of words from the resemblance of 
things are called metaphors : thus the bud of the 
vine was called gemma vitis, from its resemblance 
to a gem: thus leaf was transferred from de- 
noting a part of a plant to denote a part of a book, 
which resembled in form the leaf of a tree : thus 
cup [(calix) is transferred by botanists to signify 
a part of a flower, which it resembles ; thus 
we speak of an arm of the sea; a neck of 
land, &c. 

The resemblance on which metaphors are 
founded, is often such as might rather be called 
analogy, according to Dr. Johnson's definition of 
that word, that it denotes, " a resemblance be- 
" tween things with regard to some circumstances 
" or effects." It may be resemblance or similarity 
of form, colour, size, position or relative situation, 
design or purpose, order, &c. 

When we speak of the foot of a hill, there 
is resemblance or analogy of situation, it is the 
lowest part, and that which supports the rest, as 
the feet are of an animal. In Latin we find Radix 
montis, the root of a hill. 

The front and back of a house are so called, 
from some analogy or resemblance of purpose, 
between the mouth and eyes of a person, and the 
doors and windows of a house : the door being the 
inlet (ostium) to the house, and it being through 
the windows that the light enters and we look out. 
Hence it is sometimes a question, which ought to 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 107 

be called the front, when the door is on one side 
of a house, and the principal windows and best 
prospect on the other. 

Mr. Adam Smith, in his "■ considerations con- 
" cerning the formation of languages," supposes 
general names, as tree, cave, fountain, &c. to have 
been all proper names originally, and to have be- 
come general by the disposition of mankind to 
apply to new objects the same names they had 
before given to others, to which the new bore a 
close resemblance : * and it may be remarked, that 
the difference between a general or common name 
used as such, and used in a metaphorical sense, is 
sometimes not very considerable. Thus it is pro- 
bable, that the word neck was first employed to 
denote the neck of the human body, and after- 
wards, from similarity of purpose, form, and rela- 
tive situation, applied as a common name to the 
necks of all animals ; and by metaphor transferred 
to the similar or analogous part of inanimate ob- 
jects, as the neck of a bottle. Where the analogy 
or resemblance is so close, as in this instance, we 
are scarcely sensible that we use a metaphor, t 

Life and death are perhaps used metaphori- 
cally when spoken of vegetables, though some 
think otherwise, and that life is a common term, 
as properly applicable to plants as to animals. It 
is also a very natural metaphor, when we transfer 

* See Appendix, A. 

t Translatio ita est ab ipsa nobis concessa natura, ut indocti quoque non 
sentientes ea frequenter utantur. — Quintil. 



108 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

it to fire, as a live coal, &c. Hence the words 
proper to fire, as spark, extinguish, &c. are like- 
wise transferred to life. 

A branch of a river is another metaphorical 
expression, so natural, that it might be used un- 
consciously. And similar remarks might be made 
with regard to head, mouth, &c. 

Mr. Tooke has said nothing concerning the 
figures of speech ; but it may be remarked, that 
some expressions which would by others be con- 
sidered metaphorical, are not so according to this 
author : the words by his system being, from their 
etymological import, equally applicable to what we 
suppose their metaphorical, as to what we sup- 
pose their original meanings. Thus he tells us 
that, " head, is heaved, heav'd, the past participle 
" of the verb to heave, meaning that part (of the 
" body — or any thing else) which is heaved, raised, 
" or lifted up, above the rest." — vol. ii. p. 39. 

Whence it appears, that the word head was not 
applied originally to the head of the body, and 
afterwards transferred from resemblance or analogy 
(i. e. by metaphor), to the heads of other things, 
as is the common opinion ; but was from the first 
a general term, equally applicable to many things, 
in consequence of its etymological meaning. The 
same remark will apply to his account of many 
other words ; and he seems in the following passage 
to state his opinion, that all general terms were 
general from their first imposition — inconsequence 
of their original meanings. 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 109 

" You have already seen that the names of 
" colours have a meaning, as a cause of their deno- 
" mination ; and now you will find that the names 
" of numerals have also a meaning. So have the 
" winds, &c. In fact, all general names must have 
" a meaning, as the cause of their imposition : 
" for there is nothing strictly arbitrary in lan- 
" guage." — vol. ii. p. 204. 

That there is little strictly arbitrary in language 
is extremely probable, but I do not see how some 
arbitrary words, or roots, can be dispensed with. 
If, however, there is nothing strictly arbitrary in it, 
why say that all general names must have a mean- 
ing, as the cause of their imposition? Since, on this 
supposition, all names, whether general or particu- 
lar, must have a meaning, as the cause of their im- 
position. He may have meant, as I think it is pro- 
bable he did, that such terms were general in conse- 
quence of their etymological meaning. But a mo- 
ment's reflection will satisfy any one, that general 
names cannot be accounted for in this way, or with- 
out the aid of transference from resemblance and an- 
alogy. A definition could not be expressed in one 
word ; and the single circumstance a word implies, 
as it must be common to many things to which we 
do not apply the general name, so in other cases, it 
would make no part of a definition of things, to 
which from resemblance or analogy the name is 
applied. The clouds also are " heaved, raised, or 
" lifted up," though not called heads. " Above 
" the rest," is not expressed by heaved ; but if it 



110 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

were, " heaved, raised, or lifted up above the 
" rest," is not more applicable to the head, than 
the tail, of a fish. And if yellow is ge-aelg-ed, 
ge-aelg, the past participle of ge-aelan, accendere, 
vol. ii. p. 166. (which, however, I think not in the 
least probable), the term is used in a thousand 
cases, in which the sense of the past participle 
(accensus) will not be found, for one where it will. 
In like manner, if bird means dilatatus, propa- 
latus (vol. ii. p. 348.), the meaning is surely no 
very clear cause, for the imposition of the general 
name! And if neck is the past participle of 
hnigan, incurvare (vol. ii. p. 254.), it should be as 
applicable to the knee, and other joints of the 
body. 

To have confessed that the etymological mean- 
ing served only to make the term more intelligi- 
ble in its first application, and that, though in 
some cases it would apply to several objects, de- 
noted by the same general term, yet, in general, 
the term was transferred to other things, from their 
resemblance to the thing first denoted by it, would 
have made " the meaning" which he has brought 
to light, with so much research, appear a thing 
(not, indeed, unworthy of his research, but) of 
much less consequence than Mr. Tooke wished to 
make it appear. 

If names become general by metaphor, or from 
the disposition of mankind to apply the names of 
objects with which they were familiar, to others 
that bore a close resemblance to them, it is evi- 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. Ill 

dent, that an arbitrary name might become general 
as well as one that was derived, and had a mean- 
ing as the cause of its imposition in its first ap- 
plication. 

Metaphor a (fiera^opa) may have originally de- 
noted transference by whatever relation. It is 
rendered translatio by the Romans. But it has 
long been limited to transferences, founded on the 
resemblance of things. 

" In totum autem metaphora brevior est quam 
" similitudo, eoque distat, quod ilia comparatur 
" rei quam volumus exprimere, haec pro re ipsa 
" dicitur. Comparatio est cum dico fecisse quid 
" hominem ut leonem: translatio, cum dico de 
" homine leo est." — Quintil. lib. viii. cap. 6. 

" In metaphor the sole relation is resemblance." 
Campbell. 

" A metaphor is a figure, founded entirely 
" on the resemblance which one object bears to 
" another." — L. Murray's Grammar. 

The adjective metaphorical ought to coincide 
in meaning with metaphor, but it is, I think, ge- 
nerally used as synonymous with figurative, or as 
denoting the transference of a word from its original 
meaning by whatever trope. * This has probably 
arisen, not so much from any regard to its etymo- 
logical meaning, as from metaphor being the 



* The ancients were indebted to the Chalybeans for the manufacture and 
name of Steel, but it is observable that Chalyhs is very seldom employed, like 
Fcrrum metaphorically for a sword, never for armour, which was gene- 
rally of brass. — Lai?ig's Dissertation on Ossian's Poems. 

It is needless to observe that the employing Ferritin for a sword is not a 
metaphor, as tbe word is above explained. 



112 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

principal trope that regards single words : but it 
may be productive of error. A person who has 
read the common definitions of Metaphor, will 
naturally suppose the adjective Metaphorical con- 
sistent with them, and understand it as referring 
only to transferences of words founded on the re- 
lation of resemblance. 

The tropes synecdoche and metonymy are 
but seldom mentioned, compared with Metaphor. 
This may be partly owing to their being of less 
frequent occurrence, and partly to the circum- 
stance that, though easily distinguished from 
metaphor, they are not so readily distinguished 
from one another, the relations on which they are 
founded being more various. 

" In metaphor, the sole relation is resemblance; 
" in synecdoche, it is that which subsisteth be- 
" tween the species and the genus, between the 
" part and the whole, and between the matter and 
" the thing made from it; in metonymy, which is 
" the most various of the tropes, the relation is 
" nevertheless always reducible to these three, 
" causes, effects, or adjuncts." — Campbell 's Phi- 
losophy of Rhetor ick, book iii. ch. 1. 

Many of the transferences of words falling 
under metonymy, may be referred to association 
from concomitancy or contiguity, in time or place. 
They might be called transferences from con- 
nexion ; and metaphors transferences from re- 
semblance. Thus, 

Many towns are named from the river-mouths 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 113 

near which they are situated, — Eyemouth, 
Dartmouth, Inverness, &c. Many fruit-trees 
get their names from the places where they are 
found in greatest abundance or excellence, or from 
which they have been carried to other places. 

The parts of the horizon where the sun rises and 
sets, are in Latin called oriens and occidens, 
from their connexion by apparent contiguity with 
the rising and descending of that luminary ; as 
the Southern part of the world was called meri- 
dies (qu. medi-dies), because the sun is over it at 
mid-day. 

Beads are so called from the Anglosaxon beade, 
oratio, a prayer, being strung upon a thread, and 
used by the Romanists to count their prayers. — 
Johnson. 

Stylus, a style or pin to write with upon tables 
covered with wax, — by connexion came to denote 
a character or manner of writing. 

Lingua (tongue), from connexion, is transferred 
to denote a language or speech, which it is con- 
sidered the principal organ in uttering or mo- 
dulating. 

Pen is sometimes put for an author. 

This produced the animadversions of some of our ablest pens, 
Addison, Swift, Pope, and others. — Campbell's Philosophy oj 
Rhetorick, book iii. ch. 4. 

And for the same cause t^da sometimes 
denotes a marriage; the crown is put for the 
royalty; the mitre for the priesthood, or the epis- 



114 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

copal order, and in the Scriptures grey hairs 
for old age. 

Ale a, a die or dice, is used by Horace to sig- 
nify hazard or danger. 

Periculosse plenum opus aleee 

Tractas. Od. ill. 

In the following line Virgil uses sleep for night. 

Libra die som?iique pares ubi fecerit horas. — Georg. i. 208. 

To " bid adieu,"* when it merely signifies to 
part with, and " to weigh anchor," when it signifies 
to leave a station at sea, are likewise mctonymical 
expressions ; and others will occur to the reader's 
memory. 

It is observed, by Dr. Campbell, that in the 
representation of things sensible, there is less oc- 
casion for metaphor. "But on the contrary," 
says he, " if we critically examine any language, 
" ancient or modern, and trace its several terms 
" and phrases to their source, we shall find it hold 
" invariably, that all the words made use of to 
" denote spiritual and intellectual things, are in 
" their origin metaphors, taken from the objects 
" of sense. This shows evidently that the latter 
" have made the earliest impressions, have by 
" consequence first obtained names in every 
" tongue, and are still, as it were, more present 
" with us, and strike the imagination more forcibly 



* It is necessary that before the arrival of aire, we bid adieu to the pursuits 
of youth. — Spectator, No. 153. 

His wealth and he bid adieu to each other. — ii mn w m ** Grammar. 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 115 

"than the former." — Philosophy of Rhetorick, 
Book iii. ch. 1. 

That objects of sense made " the earliest impres- 
sions," was not, perhaps, so much the cause of the 
feature in language under consideration, as that 
" they are, as it were, still more present with us." 
For if it had been otherwise, and spiritual things had 
made the earliest impressions, it would still seem 
necessary to have recourse to figurative language 
in speaking of them. The way in which the 
name of a thing is made known to a child (and 
the same method must be used with a grown per- 
son without language), is to shew the thing to 
him, or submit it to some of his senses, and 
directing his attention to it, pronounce the name. 
But spiritual things cannot be submitted to the 
senses, and hence it would be difficult for one 
person to comprehend what another meant by any 
word he applied to them, without the aid of some 
type or concomitant of the thing signified in ob- 
jects of sense.* 

But that all the words made use of to denote 
spiritual or intellectual things, are in their origin 
metaphors, is not true, if " the sole relation in 
" metaphor is resemblance." This could not, 

* Cicero observes that it is chiefly from objects of sight — " qui sensus est 
" acerrimus" — that metaphors are taken ; and adds, " ponunt pene in con- 
" spectu animi, quae cernere et videre non possumus." — An expression not 
unlike that of Cowper — 

I admire, 
None more admires, the painter's magic skill 
Who shows me that which I shall never see, 
Conveys a distant country into mine, 
And throws Italian light on English walls. 

i 2 



116 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

indeed, a priori, be expected to be the case. 
There are many things which cannot be repre- 
sented literally by the painter (and of which, per- 
haps, no symbol or allegorical representation could 
be devised), which yet he may suggest metonymi- 
cally, by their effects or concomitants, in things 
that may be painted ; as wind, by the leaning of 
trees and plants to one side, by the direction of 
smoke, the ruffling of water, &c. ; the motion of 
animals by their attitudes ; heat, by the undress 
and perspiration of labourers, by cattle collected 
in a pool, &c. ; and the affections of the mind, by 
the conformation of the features and carriage of 
the body that accompany them ; — for often 

the outward action doth demonstrate 

The native act and figure of the heart. 

Othello. 

Now it were strange, if in language we never 
had recourse to the same method, and had no 
means but by resemblances or types, of suggesting 
those emotions or acts of the mind, which the 
painter, and the deaf and dumb, suggest by their 
effects on the body ; or that it should be in speak- 
ing of spiritual or intellectual things only, that we 
never had recourse to metonymy, but confined 
ourselves to metaphor. 

To imagine, ruminate, reflect, waver, cSr. are, no 
doubt, metaphorical expressions in the strict sense 
of the word. But such words as express, origi- 
nally and literally, the bodily act that accom- 
panies, or may naturally accompany the mental 
act they denote, suggest the mental act bv its 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 117 

connexion or concomitancy with the bodily act, 
and not by any supposed resemblance of the one to 
the other. To blush, sneer, sigh, shudder, <§*c. each 
of these, though they properly refer to the body, 
suggests an affection or operation of the mind 
(shame, comtempt, &c), which is naturally ac- 
companied by the bodily act they literally ex- 
press; and with the help of the context they 
suggest, or express the figurative sense as readily 
as the literal. To blush, is explained by Johnson 
" to betray shame or confusion, by a red colour in 
" the cheeks." Shame, horror, and contempt, are 
surely spiritual or intellectual things, but those 
words do not suggest them metaphorically , or from 
any resemblance supposed to exist between a blush 
and shame, &c. 

Nee erubuit sylvas habitare Thalia. 

Virgil. 

Blush, Grandeur, blush; proud courts withdraw your blaze; 
Ye little stars ! hide your diminish'd rays. Pope. 

If the agonies of a moment could expiate the crimes of a whole 
life, or if the outrages inflicted on a breathless corpse could be the 
object of pity, our humanity might perhaps be affected by the 
horrid circumstances which accompanied the murder of Rufinus. 
His mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of the popu- 
lace of either sex, who hastened in crowds, from every quarter of 
the city, to trample on the remains of the haughty minister, 
at whose frown they had so lately trembled. — Gibbons 
Roman Empire, ch. 29. 

Frown and tremble are names for sensible 
things, but these sensible things are mentioned 
only as they suggest displeasure and fear, which 
are not objects of sense. They do not suggest 
them by resemblance, but by a known connexion. 



118 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

When such words have in this manner come to 
suggest an intellectual meaning, the original sense 
sometimes becomes obsolete, or is lost sight of. 
They then express the intellectual meaning 
directly, and do not merely suggest it by means 
of another sense. When we expect a person we 
look out for him, — expectare originally expresses 
no more, leaving the interpretation of that sensible 
act to the hearer. It now expresses merely the 
intellectual act. 

Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child : 
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness, 
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, 
That thou expectest not, nor I look' d for. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

We expect many things we do not look out for 
and could not possibly see ; but we say, with 
equal propriety, that we look for such things, and 
that there is nothing at all unusual in such an 
extension of a word. A thousand instances of 
similar extension or transference might easily be 
quoted. They may be found in almost every page 
of Johnson's Dictionary. 

Look now for no enchanting: voice, nor fear 

The bait of honied words. Milton. 

To regard, French regard-er, to look upon or 
at, is with us nearly obsolete in the original mean- 
ing, and is almost exclusively used in the intellec- 
tual sense, — to attend to, mind or observe; at 
least we seldom think of the original meaning, 
though being the natural sign of the intellectual. 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 119 

and having therefore given occasion to it, it may, 

of course, be often understood. 

The visible appearance of objects is hardly ever regarded by 
us. — Reid. 

The king marvelled at the young man's courage, for that he 
nothing regarded the pains. — 2Maccab. vii. 12. 

Now reigns 
Full-orb'd the moon, and with more pleasing light 
Shadowy sets off the face of things ; in vain 
If none regard. Milton. 

See Regard, Look upon, Look to, Look after, 
Listen to, Overlook, See, Stand by, &c. in John- 
son's Dictionary. 

To appal, according to the received etymo- 
logy, expressed originally, the effect of great fear, 
paleness in the countenance ; but if so, the original 
sense is lost. 

To lower (the eyebrows), frontem contrahere, 
expresses literally an "outward action," not other- 
wise worthy of notice, but as it accompanies and 
indicates an action of the mind. To frown and 
to pout (French bout-er, to thrust out — the lips), 
are similar expressions. 

Happiness courts thee in her best array ; 
But like a misbehaved and sullen wench, 
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love. 

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 3. 

" Alert (as well as erect), is the past participle 
" of erigere, now in Italian ergere : all'erecta, 
" all'ercta, all'erta, and hence the French 
" al'herte, as it was formerly written, and the 
" modern French alerte." — ■ Div. of Pur ley, vol. ii. 
p. 24. 

Be up and doing. — Bible. 



120 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

A contrary state of mind is inferred from a 
contrary attitude or posture, — supine. 

Suppliaxt hardly conveys any meaning now 

but " humbly entreating." The etymological 

sense of bending or kneeling is not mentioned by 

Johnson, although the authority of Milton might 

be quoted for it. 

To bow and sue for grace 
With suppliant knee. 

Paradise Lost. 

One turns away from what he dislikes, hence 
aversion ; it literally signifies turning away. 

Diva solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat. 

jEjieid. I. v. 

And the French eloign em ent has, probably, 
acquired its intellectual meaning in the same 
manner. 

Cependant rien ne pouvoit triompher de mon invincible 
ELOIGNEMEHT pour ce que j'apereevois en lui. — Madame de 
Stacl 

" When we consider," says H. Tooke, " that 
" we have and can have no way of expressing the 
" acts or operations of the mind, but by the same 
" words by which we express some corresponding 
" (or supposed corresponding" act or operation of 
" the body : when (amongst a multitude of similar 
" instances) we consider that we express a mode- 
" rate desire for any thing, by saying that we 
" incline (i.e. bend ourselves) to it : will it snr- 
44 prize us, that we should express an eager de- 
" sire, by saying that we long, i. e. make long. 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 121 

" lengthen, or stretch out ourselves after it, or for 
" it ? especially when we observe, that after the 
"verb, to incline, we say, To or Towards it; but 
" after the verb, to long, we must use either the 
" word for or after, in order to convey our mean- 
" ing." — Div. of Pur ley, vol. i. p. 430. 

It is not quite clear what is here meant by 
" corresponding" acts. It is going too far, to say, 
we have no way of expressing the acts or opera- 
tions of the mind, but by some corresponding act 
or operation of the body, if (as would appear 
from the examples, and his explanation of them) 
he means by corresponding what I have called the 
accompanying act of the body, or the bodily act 
that might naturally, in some cases, accompany 
the act of the mind, and at first (when gesticu- 
lation was, no doubt, more used) might be em- 
ployed to suggest it. For there are acts or opera- 
tions of the mind, that are not accompanied by 
any particular bodily act or operation more than 
another, to reflect, imagine, think, &c. " Corre- 
sponding" may also signify analogous ; bodily acts 
that are supposed to bear some analogy or resem- 
blance to the mental acts. But these ought to be 
distinguished from the former: the words that 
express the sensible act, being in the one case 
transferred to their spiritual or intellectual mean- 
ings by metaphor, and in the other by metonymy. 

" The powers which imply some degree of re- 
" flection," says Reid, " have generally no names 
" but such as are analogical. The objects of 



122 ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

" thought are said to be in the mind, to be appre- 
" hended, comprehended, conceived, imagined, re- 
" tained, weighed, ruminated." 

Locke had, probably, the same distinction in 
view, where he says, " Mankind were fain to 
" borrow words from ordinary known ideas of 
" sensation, by that means to make others more 
" easily to conceive those operations they expe- 
" rienced in themselves, which made no outward 
" sensible appearances." — Book iii. ch. 1. 

For in the enumeration he makes of such words, 
" to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, con- 
" ceive, instill, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &c." 
there is no word that originally denoted an accom- 
panying bodily act, from which the mental act 
they denote might be inferred; and there could 
be no great difficulty in making others conceive 
those operations they experienced in themsc I 
which did make an " outward sensible appear- 
u ance." * 

Mr. Tooke has not adverted to the " corre- 
sponding," or accompanying bodily act, that ex- 
presses contempt and dislike, where he tells us. 
Faugh, Fughf, Foh, Fie, are the imperative of the 
Moeso- Gothic and Anglosaxon verb Jian, to hate ; 
and pshaw, the past participle of paec-an, to de- 



* See Appendix, E. 

•f But I wye to you, that ech man that is wroth to his brothir schal be jrilty 
to doom, and he that seith to his brothir, /mgk, schal Ix* jrilty to the counsell ; 
but he that seith fool schal be irilty into the lire of hell. — ; 
Testament. 



ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 123 

ceive. I think he had better have left them in the 
class of " brutish inarticulate interjections." 
Pshaw or Pish, Tush and Hiss, sibilo, mpujait), have 
a common origin with their brutish kindred, be- 
ginning with the letter F. 

It is not necessary for my purpose, nor perhaps 
possible, to explain how every word that expresses 
an intellectual idea acquired its meaning ; I may 
not have viewed even the whole of those which I 
have enumerated in the proper light : but I trust, 
enough has been said to establish, either that it 
is incorrect to say, all the words made use of to 
denote spiritual or intellectual things, are in their 
origin metaphors, or that the word Metaphor must 
not be understood as denoting transferences from 
resemblance only. This is not advanced as a dis- 
covery, but as a thing necessary to be kept in view 
in considering the transference of some words to 
denote soul or spirit ; inattention to it appearing 
to have been a cause of the prevalence of erro- 
neous notions with respect to those words. 



124 



SECTION II. — ON SOxME TERMS EMPLOYED TO 
DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 



" Although," says Mr. Stewart, " by far the 
" greater part of the transitive or derivative ap- 
" plications of words, depend on the casual or 
" unaccountable caprices of the feelings, or of the 
" fancy, there are certain cases, in which they 
" offer a very interesting field of philosophical 
" speculation. Such are those in which an ana- 
" logous transference of the corresponding term 
" may be remarked universally, or very generally 
" in other languages, and in which, of course, the 
" uniformity of the result must be ascribed to the 
" essential principles of the human frame." — 
Philosophical Essays, p. 270. second edition. 

Perhaps there is not in language a more inter 
ing field of speculation than in the very general, 
if not universal transference of the words, signi- 
fying Breath, to denote the sentient and thinking 
principle within us. The profound and elegant 
writer, from whose works the above quotation is 
taken, has proposed an examination of the circum- 
stances which led to this transference as a pro- 
blem, not unworthy the attention o( etymolog 
and has at the same time himself offered a solu- 



ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED, &C. 125 

tion of it.* The subject had engaged my at- 
tention before seeing Mr. Stewart's works; and 
I venture to offer a different solution of the pro- 
blem, and shall endeavour to show, that mankind 
had no thought at all about the nature of the soul, 
or " atoms and elements, supposed to produce 
" the phenomena of thought and volition," when 
they transferred the name of Breath to it : that it 
was not in fact a transference from resemblance, 
but from the connexion of Breath with Life and 
Soul. 

Every language abounds with expressions, 
which shew, that breath has always been regarded 
as the principal test or indication of the presence 
of life. ' ' He drew his first breath at — — , was at 
" the last gasp, the breath was gone, to breathe 
" his last, tout ce qui respire, animam efflare, ex- 
" tremum halitum efflare, expirare," &c. &c. 

Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera 

Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus. 

Mneid. vi. 849. 

All forms that perish other forms supply, 
By turns we catch the vital breath and die. 

Pope. 
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. — Genesis, chap. ii. 
ver. 7. 

His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very 
day his thoughts perish. — Psalm cxlvi. 4. 

Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their 
dust. — Psalm civ. 29. 

See also Ezekiel xxxvii. 1 — 10. 

* See Appendix, B. 



126 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

Lend me a looking glass ; 
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, 
Why, then she lives. King Lear, Act v. sc. 3. 

Hence breath, and the words equivalent to it 
in other languages, are transferred to denote life. 

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath 
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death. 

Pope. 

Leontes. My true Paulina, 

We shall not marry until thou bidst us. 
Paulina. That 

Shall be when your first queen's again in breath. 

Winter's Tale, Act v. sc. 1. 
Sus vero quid habet ? cui quidem, ne putresceret, nnimam 
ipsam pro sale datam dicit esse Chrysippus ? — Cicero, D< 
Deorum, Lib. ii. 160. 

Spiritu culpam lues. — Phcedrus. 

Senex de filii magis vita et increments, quam de reliquo spiritu 
suo sollicitus. — Valer. Maximus, Lib. ix. cap. '3. 

Ov yap tfiol \pv^i)s uyru^ior, — 
Arft^ot pev yap te ftuis teal <<2xa fiijXa. 
' \icpus ce \pv\i) naXiv tXdely ovre Xei^i), 

0U0' eXeTi), E7TEI Up KEV <\f.tEl vi/f rat tpKOS 0(('ii TUtt . 

Iliad, ix. 401. 
But from our lips the vital spirit fled, 
Returns no more to wake the silent dead. 

Pope. 
No man has more contempt than I of breath. 
But whence hast thou the power to give me death I 

Dry den. 
The passions, attri! 
Of earth and heaven, from which no power, nor being 
Nor breath from the worm upwards is exempt, 
Have piere'd his heart. Byron. 

Lastly, from the intimate connexion, if not 
identity of the vital or sentient, and the thinking 
principles in man, the name of Breath transferred 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 127 

to the former, might serve also to suggest the 
latter ; or (as the words often, and in some of the 
foregoing quotations, seem to import) a confused 
idea of the whole— ^-breath, life, and soul — 
together. 

Kcu £7T£<rp£^e to TTVEVfia avTrjs, Kcii ave^r} Trapa^prjjjia. 

Luke's Gospel, chap. viii. 55. 

" And her spirit came again, and she arose 
" straightway." 

The passage might have been translated, " And 
" her breath came again," or " and life returned," 
without in the least affecting the meaning. 

The common, and I believe universal opinion, 
with regard to these words, Spirit, Anima, ^v^v, 
Uvevfia, &c. is that they are transferred to the soul 
metaphorically, or from a supposed resemblance of 
soul to breath or air. Thus Professor Hill in his 
Synonymes of the Latin language says, 

" Anima, animus, mens, agree in referring to 
" the soul or living principle, but differ in respect 
" to the powers ascribed to the being to which 
" each of them is properly applied. Anima sig- 
" nifies nothing more than the principle of life, by 
" which animate are distinguished from inanimate 
" substances. By the presence of this is formed 
" the being called animal ; distinct on the one 
" hand from pure spirit, and on the other from 
" mere matter. The term comes from the Greek 
" avepog, signifying air in motion. Before the 
" Romans began to speculate on the subjects of 



128 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

<i pneumatology, anima would, in all probability, 
" signify nothing but the element of air, which it 
" sometimes did afterwards. Thus Virgil applies 
" it to the blast of Vulcan's furnace : 

Quantum ignes animcecpie valent. 

JEneid, viii. 403. 

" And Cicero says, 

" Inter ignem et terram aquam Deus animamque posuit. 
» DeUn. 197, b. 

" It was also employed to signify breath, or air 
" used in respiration. 

" Sub corde pulmo est, spirandique officina, attrahens et red- 
" dens animam. — Plin. 11. 37. 

" From denoting the thinnest of material sub- 
" stances, which is the fluid called air, anima has 
" been transferred to spirit, to which this fluid is 
" understood to bear the nearest resemblance. 
r * In the first and rudest conceptions which men 
" form of mind, it is always held to be subtilized 
" matter. In the eye of reason, however, it must 
" be as unlike to the thinnest vapour that infests 
" the mine, as to its grossest metals. No change 
" of which matter is susceptible can produce an 
" approximation to a substance, from which it is 
" essentially different. 

" ^groto dum anima est, spes esse dicitur. — Cicero Epist. 
" ad. Att. 145. a. Animantia quemadmodum divido ? at dicani 
" qusedam animum habent, qusedam tantum animam. — Sencc. 
Epist. 58. 

Summum credas nefas anima)n prreferre pudori, 
Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. 

Juvcn. 8. 33. 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 129 

" Juvenal, speaking of the brute creation, says, 

Mundi 
Principio indulsit communis conditor illis 
Tantum animas, nobis animum quoque. 

Sat. 15. 147. 

" Animus, then, differs from anima, in suggest- 
" ing that to the principle of life denoted by the 
" latter, there are superadded those powers of 
" feeling and reason, which constitute the rational 
" soul, and raise man above the lower animals. 

" Difficile est animum perducere ad contemptum animce. — 
Senec. ad Lucil. 

" Though in the brute creation the anima exists 
" without the animus, yet in the rational the con- 
" trary does not take place. The classics accord- 
" ingly have been guilty of no inaccuracy, in 
" thought or expression, in sometimes substituting 
" the former for the latter term. 

" Causa in anima sensuque meo penitus affixa atque insita 
" est. — Cic. in Ver. 5. 139. Mortales indocti incultique vitam 
u sicuti peregrinantes transegere: quibus pro fee to contra naturam 
" corpus voluptati, anima oneri fuit. — Sail. Cat. 2. 8. 

" As there can be no possible abstraction of the 
" rational from the living principle in man, so there 
" can be no looseness in the application of any 
" term, which, from the nature of the subject 
" cannot be misunderstood. 

Nunc animum atque animam duo conjuncta teneri 
Inter se, atque unam naturam conficere ex se. 

Lucret. 3. 135. 

" Mens differs from animus in being confined to 
" the intellectual part of mind alone, and in having 

K 



130 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

" the controul of every appetite, which would 
" otherwise be ungovernable. It denotes that 
" principle which perceives the truth," &c. 

1. In the first and rudest speculations on the 
nature or essence of mind, it may have been 
thought to be subtilized matter like the fluid air, 
and perhaps the same opinion is still held by some 
few individuals who speculate on the subject ; but 
can such a philosophical hypothesis really have 
given occasion to a transference so universal ? I 
appeal to my readers, if they have ever formed any 
such notion, as that their soul, or the thinking 
principle within them, is of an aerial nature ? 
Few, even in the present age, ever speculate on 
the subject at all ; and can we imagine that the 
rude inventors of speech speculated on such sub- 
jects, or were likely to form any such notion or 
theory? Surely not; and far less can we believe 
that all nations, in the rude ages when speech was 
formed, would have adopted the same theory. They 
were conscious of a thinking principle within them ; 
but I suppose nobody will say that there is any 
resemblance or analogy between wind, air, or 
breath — and thought or mind; or that the ana- 
logy is so palpable as to be likely to be remarked 
by all nations in the rudest ages. 

Till this analogy, however, is demonstrated, or 
an obvious reason pointed out for supposing the 
existence of a subtile fluid like air in the body 
producing thought, I can see no good reason 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRTT. 131 

for believing that the words Hvevpa, spiritus, $$c. 
were transferred to the mind metaphorically or 
from a supposed resemblance of the thinking prin- 
ciple to air or breath, and must rather hold that 
it was by metonymy from the connexion of breath 
with Life and Soul. 

2. But though, I think, there are but few, even 
in this philosophic age, who speculate on the na- 
ture of Soul, or form any opinion concerning its 
essence, while in the body ; I readily admit that 
the belief of its immortality might lead mankind, 
even in the rudest ages, to think of the nature of 
ghosts, or disembodied breaths : and, as they had 
no other grounds to go upon, they might be led 
by the name *, as well as the invisibility of the 
thing signified, to suppose that ghosts or breaths 
were of an aerial nature. And this notion of 
ghosts, seems to have prevailed in all ages and 
nations. — " Aperta enim simplexque mens, nulla 
" re adjuncta, quae sentire possit, fugere intelli- 
" gentise nostras vim, et notionem videtur. f De 
Nat. Deorum, Lib. i. cap. 26. 



* " And lastly," says Bacon, " let us consider the false appearances that 
" are imposed upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to 
" the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort : and although we think we 
"govern our words, and prescribe it well — loquendum ut vulgus, sentien- 
" dum ut sapientes ; — yet certain it is, that words, as a Tartar's bow, do 
" shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle 
" and pervert the judgement." — Of the Advancement of Learning. 

If words shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, it is not to be 
wondered at if they shoot back upon the understandings of the vulgar. 

-r That this is no reason for disbelieving the immortality of the soul is well 
argued by the same writer. Vide Appendix, C. 

K 2 



132 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

By some nations the soul in the disembodied 
state has been metaphorically called a shade, but 
this is rather a poetical expression, and by no 
means so universal a transference. 

3. " How generally," says Reid, " men of all 
" nations and in all ages of the world, have con- 
" ceived the soul, or thinking principle in man, to 
" be some subtile matter like breath or wind, the 
" names given to it in all languages sufficiently 
" testify.' 1 — Inquiry into the Human Mind, ch. vii. 

And Locke has expressed himself to the same 
purpose in a note to his Essay, book iv. ch. iii. 
sec. 6. 

I doubt, however, if there are any proofs, but the 
names, that this conception of the thinking prin- 
ciple in man has been so universal : and if not, 
there is room to suspect, that in this opinion of 
these philosophers there may be an instance of 
the reaction of language upon thought, or of words 
" shooting back upon the understanding of the 
" ivisest." 

Professor Hill thinks it probable that axima sig- 
nified nothing but the element of air, till the Romans 
began to speculate on the subjects of pneumato- 
logy ; and that it was in consequence of their specu- 
lations on these subjects, that the word came to sig- 
nify the living principle or soul. But this cannot 
be believed by any one who reflects, that the same 
secondary meaning has been acquired by the word 
denoting breath in all primitive languages, and in 
nations who can hardly be said to have speculated 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 133 

in pneumatology, or be supposed to have heard of 
the controversies, to which of the elements the 
nature of the soul was to be referred. Anima is 
rarely used to signify merely the element of air ; its 
proper import is breath : hence, like the corres- 
ponding word in other languages, it was transferred 
to the living principle from connexion, because re- 
spiration is considered the index of the presence 
of life: and, " as there is no possible abstraction 
" of the rational from the living principle in man," 
the same word might suggest both.* The trans- 
ference is similar to what happened with spiritus 
from spiro ; Uvev/ma from ttveo, to breathe ; ^v^n from 
■>pvyu, to breathe; ande (Swedish) a spirit or 
ghost, from ande breath, andas to breathe, &c. 



* Ipse autem animus ab anima dictus est. — Cicero. 

But how, it may be said, if nnv/xa, spiritus, &c. came to denote the soul in 
the way here supposed, how has it happened that Bios, vita, life, which de- 
noted the living principle properly, and without a figure, were not also trans- 
ferred to denote the soul or thinking principle ? for though Virgil says, 

Vitaqae cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras, 
and 

tenues sine corpore vitas, 

the transference is certainly not common. The answer to this, I conceive, is, 
that though in man there is no abstraction of the rational from the living prin- 
ciple, or it is but seldom at least they do not exist together, yet we are naturally 
led to distinguish the living principle {life) , which we have in common with 
the meanest thing that creeps, and as some think with vegetables, from the 
rational soul that is peculiar to us. The proper term, vita, life, &c. could not 
therefore so readily quit its proper sense, nor without creating some confusion 
be transferred to the soul or thinking principle. It was more natural to employ 
the less general and figurative term ^v^n, spiritus, anima, 8fc. Though breath 
(as anima, spiritus, Sfc.) is used to denote life, it is but occasionally so used, 
and its manner of denoting it, or the figure, was seldom if ever lost sight of, 
Anima was perhaps more frequently employed to denote life than the corre- 
sponding word in any other language, but its manner of signifying it was 
never, I suppose, so far lost sight of that any writer ever used it to signify the 
life of plants, nor to signify life abstractly, but only in context with the word 
denoting some animal or animals. 



134 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

" The word by our interpreters of the Bible ren- 
" dered wind, also denotes spirit and breath. A 
" similar homonymy, in the corresponding term 
" may be observed not only in the Oriental, but in 
" almost all ancient tongues." — Campbell's Philo- 
sophy of Rhctorick, book iii. ch. iii. 

4. Wind and breath are both " air in motion," 
and we may expect to find them often expressed 
by the same or similar words.* But in languages 
where there are different words for wind and 
breath, the names of soul or spirit seem rather to 
be taken from the latter. Now if these words 
were transferred from an analogous subtilty in 
soul and air, " the thinnest of material substances," 
would not the words Wind or Air be as naturally 
employed as Breath ? 

5. It is not however in its subtilty that air re- 
sembles soul, according to the ingenious Abbe 
Sicard, but in its appearing to be a simple and un- 
compounded substance : 

" II y a done en toi un etre qui connoit, qui se 
" souvient, qui recoit des idees, les pese et les 
" combine, en forme des resultats, et qui, par con- 
" sequent, r^fl&hit et raisonne, veut, desire, et 
" goute le bonheur d'aimer. 

" Massieu me comprit a merveille ; et m'inter- 
" rompant au milieu de ce discours, ou mon ame 
" etoit si heureuse d'avoir enfin rencontre la sienne, 



* A breath or breeze of wiud. Wind (avsfxo; ventusj is the Sredi 

(anima) breath. 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 135 

" il me demande avec impressement le nom de ce 
" second principe. 

" On n'a rien trouve" dans la nature qui put le 
" distinguer, dis-je, a Massieu, parce qu'il n'y a 
" que lui seul qui soit simple dans la nature. Mais 
" comme Fair paroit l'objet le moins compose^ les 
" Latins lui donnerent le nom de souffle, spiritus 
" que nous lui avons conserved" — Cours d' instruc- 
tion d'un Sourd-muet. 

The Abbe's reason, however, for saying " qu'il 
n'y a que l'esprit seul qui soit simple dans la 
nature," is not very satisfactory. His anxiety to 
prove the immateriality of the soul has induced 
him to build on a very insecure foundation — that 
an effect is always of the same nature with its 
cause. 

" Nous savons, mon cher enfant, qu'il n'y a pas 
" d'effet sans cause ; nous trouvons ici des effets, 
" il y a done une cause. La nature des effets doit 
" pareillement indiquer la nature de la cause. Or 
" rien de ce qui est materiel, etendu, divisible, 
" n'ayant pu produire des effets immateriels, 
" simples, et indivisibles, la cause productrice de 
c< ces effets doit done etre immaterielle, simple, et 
■** indivisible comme eux." 

By the same reasoning it might be proved, that 
the material world could not be the effect of an 
immaterial cause. But the ancient philosophers 
did not believe the soul to be immaterial; and, 
though some of them asserted its nature to be 



136 OX SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

simple and uncompounded*, I question if ever any 
of them assigned this as the reason of its being 
called spiritus, breath. — See Appendix D. 

Even supposing all nations to have discovered 
the simplicity and uncompounded nature of soul, 
would this account for their having all transferred 
the name of Breath to it ? Does not water appear 
to be equally simple, and as uncompounded, as 
air? 

In another part of his work the Abbe says, 
" Ame, de anima, Latin, tire de THebreu, et qui 
" signifie Texistence, la vie, Tetre, ce qui vit, ce 
" qui respire ; il exprime aussi le souffle ou la 
" respiration, qui en est le signe certain. Or la 
" respiration se peint naturellement par les mono- 
" syllabes af, aph, ou av ; Fun de ces monosyl- 
" labes, prononce lentement, est Taction meme de 
" souffler ou de respirer. Aph, af, av, en Hebreu 
" a done signifie toute espece de souffle, ou toute 
" ce qui resemble, et consequemment, la respira- 

" tion, la vie, lame. Le mot esprit vient de la 

" meme source et signifie aussi respiration. — 
Ch. xxiii. 

If he had placed the different senses of anima in 
the order in which he has placed those of the 
Hebrew aph, " la respiration, la vie, lame," his 
account of the word would have come nearer that 
here given. It is surely more natural to suppose 
the word denoting breath " the sure sign of life," 



* Sic mihi persoasi — cum simplex aninri natura esset, neque haberet in se 
quidquam admistum dispar sui atqoe dissimile, non posse eum dividi ; quod si 
non possit, non posse interire, &c. — Cicero, rlc Senectutc. 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 137 

was transferred to denote life, than that the word 
first denoted life (a thing known only in its effects), 
and was afterwards transferred to Breath as being 
a sign of life. 

6. It is by metonymy, according to Dr. Camp- 
bell, that certain parts of the body, the head, 
heart, &c. are substituted to denote certain powers 
or affections of the mind with which they are sup- 
posed to be connected.* 

It has not been supposed that in the first and 
rudest conceptions of the intellect it was held to 
resemble a head, or that the affections had been 
held to resemble a heart, rage to resemble the 
gall, &c. Why then might it not be, by a sup- 
posed connexion of the breath with the vital and 
thinking principles, that its name was transferred 
to them ? The origin of such a supposed connexion 
is at least as clear, as that of the fancied connexion 
of some parts of the body with certain powers or 
affections of the mind. 

7. Date, vulnera lymphis 
Abluam ; et extremus si quis super halitus errat 
Ore legam. JEneid, iv. 683. 

Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul. 

Pope. 



"No sort of metonymy is commoner among every people than that by 
which some parts of the body have been substituted to denote certain powers 
or affections of the mind, with which they are supposed to be connected." — 
Philosophy of Rhetorick, book iii. ch. 1. 

Compare this with the passage quoted from the same author, p. 114. Another 
instance of the vagueness of the word Metaphorical occurs in this author's 
Fouith Preliminary Dissertation to his Translation of the Gospels, section 23, 
where the transference of heart or na$ia, to denote the soul, is first called 
metaphorical and afterwards a metonymy. 



138 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED^ 

The commentators on this passage of Virgil tell 
us, that it was the practice of the Greeks and an- 
cient Romans, to apply their mouths to the mouths 
of their dying friends and relations, to receive their 
last breath. Such a practice, it is evident, must 
have arisen, not from a supposition that the breath 
only resembled the soul, but that it was connected 
with it, or that the soul existed in the breath, and 
departed with it. What was it that made Love- 
lace wish to preserve in spirits the heart of Cla- 
rissa ? Not an idea that it resembled her soul or 
her virtues, but its being connected or associated 
with them, from having been regarded astheir seat 
or temple. Such a connection is also implied in 
the rhetorical action of laying one's hand upon 
one's heart, which in another age or country may 
be regarded as of a piece with sucking the last 
breath, " to catch the flying soul !" 

8. As no one has supposed the transference of 
head and heart to the mind to have been occa- 
sioned by a supposed resemblance, so neither, I 
imagine, would flvcvpc, spiritus, <xc. have been 
considered metaphorical expressions, had it not 
been for the circumstance, that the belief of the 
soul's immortality gave occasion to speculate on its 
nature when separated from the body, in which 
state, or as it departs, it is invisible*; and hence 
it might be thought (as the name also implies 
an aerial nature, and that this must be its nature 
also while in the body : — and thus, without much 

* Par levibus vends, volncriqne simillima somno. — VirgiL 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 139 

enquiry, it might naturally enough be concluded, 
that those who gave it that name believed it to be 
aerial or like air, though in fact they never had a 
thought about its nature, when they applied the 
name to it. 

If any one should still think, that this consi- 
deration of the soul being invisible, as it leaves the 
body, may have given rise to a general belief, that 
the thinking principle within us is of an aerial 
nature, and that it will account for the transfer- 
ence of those words to it as existing in the body, 
let him consider, that though spirit is not in our 
languages ascribed to the brutes, yet Spiritus and 
Anima (as denoting breath and life) are ascribed 
to them in Latin* ; and when Dr. Reid observed, 
that it appeared from their language that the 
Romans considered " the soul or thinking prin- 
" ciple in man to be some subtile matter like 
" breath or wind,"| he might have added, with 
equal reason, that they appeared to have enter- 
tained the same opinion of the living principle 
in all animals. Now as one of two things ap- 
pears to have happened, which is the most pro- 
bable — that Spiritus and Anima, words properly 
signifying breath, " the sure sign of life," were 
transferred by connexion to the living principle of 
animals, man as well as others, and hence also to 



* Some instances were given above, p. 125, 126, 129 ; and more might be 
added, if the point were doubtful. 

That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts, even one thing be- 
falleth them ; as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea they have all one 
breath. — Eccles. ch. iii. v. 19. 

f Sup. p. 132. 



140 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

the thinking principle in man : or that the words 
being first applied to that higher principle, from its 
invisibility on leaving the body, came afterwards 
to signify the living principle even of brutes, as if 
we should use the word mind in that sense ? 

They who took it upon authority that " all the 
" words made use of to denote spiritual or intel- 
" lectual things are in their origin metaphors," 
and that " the sole relation in metaphor is resem- 
blance," would never suspect an error in the com- 
mon opinion respecting those words. The unde- 
fined import of the term metaphorical might 
also be a means of occasioning or prolonging the 
error. Some who said these names were trans- 
ferred metaphorically, might only mean that they 
were figurative terms ; while it might be supposed 
they meant that they were transferred by meta- 
phor, the trope that is founded on resemblance ; 
and thus their authority thought to countenance 
that opinion. 

9. Whether the opinion I have been endeavour- 
ing to controvert be entirely a modern one or not, 
my reading does not enable me to say. It is not 
mentioned in that passage in the first book of 
Cicero's Tusculan Questions, where he has brought 
together the various opinions of the ancients con- 
cerning the soul. He tells us, that some had 
thought the heart was the soul, as appeared from 
various expressions in Latin, twcors, kc. : that 
Empedocles thought the blood about the heart was 
the soul : that others imagined part of the brain 
was the soul : others again thought neither the 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 141 

heart, nor part of the brain, was the soul ; but 
some that the brain, others the heart, was the seat 
or place of the soul : that others, and his country- 
men in particular, had called the breath the souL 
" Animum autem alii animam, ut fere nostri, de- 
" clarant nominari : nam et agere animam, efflare, 
" dicimus, et animosas, et bene animatos, et ex 
" animi sententia : ipse autem animus ab anima 
" dictus est."* But there is no mention of its 
being thought a subtile fluid like air or breath. | 

Among the various opinions started by philoso- 
phers on the subject, two seem to have been prin- 
cipally followed, — one that the soul was aerial, 
which the names applied to it seemed to show had 
been the opinion of the ancients ; the other that 
it was fire, this opinion deriving its probability 
from animal heat, " quia corpora nostra terreno 
" principiorum genere confecta, ardore animi con- 
" valescunt." TuscuL Quasi. These opinions were 
combined in a third, that the soul is heated air, 
" inflammatus aer." 

10. To conclude : It may by some be thought 
of small importance, to what trope the transference 
of those names of the soul is referred ; and that no 
bad consequence can result from the common, 
though erroneous notion, that the expressions are 
metaphorical. But the truth is notwithstanding- 
desirable ; and to some the right determination of 
the question may not appear altogether so useless, 

* Sec the whole passage in the Appendix, D. 

f In one place he suggests a possibility that although all that is covered in 
the body could be exposed to view, the tenuity of the soul may be such that 
we could not perceive it. — See Appendix, C. 



142 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

since " this figurative language with respect to 
" mind has been considered by some of our later 
" metaphysicians as a convincing proof that the 
" doctrine of its materiality is agreeable to gene- 
" ral belief; and that the opposite hypothesis 
" has originated in the blunder of confounding 
" what is very minute with what is immaterial.*" 
— Stewart's Philosophical Essays, p. 122. 2d edit. 

The folly of such an inference from this lan- 
guage, if my account of the transference of the 
words be correct, may be thus exemplified : 

It was before observed that Lingua, tongue, is 
transferred by metonymy or from connexion, to 
denote speech or language, which that member is 
considered the principal organ in uttering or mo- 
dulating. Now had speech been a thing as remote 
from the senses, and as interesting to man as his 
own soul, there would probably have been specu- 
lations about its nature or essence. The name 
Tongue or Language (lingua) might have been sup- 
posed applied to it metaphorically, and this figu- 
rative language considered a convincing proof of 
its being agreeable to general belief that speech 
is something like a tongue, or something of the 
shape and nature of a tongue. At least it might 
have been inferred, that in the first and rudest con- 
ceptions of speech, it had been held to be some- 
thing like a tongue ; and perhaps we should have 
been told by a great etymologist, that language is 
simply and merely what is tongued.* 



* See H. Tooke's etymology and definition of Truth and Tri e. 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 143 

Wraith is a Scotch word, synonymous with 
ghost, about the etymology of which it is rather 
surprising that there should have been any diffi- 
culty. 

In the Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. page 393, 
after a quotation from Gawin Douglas's translation 
of Virgil, in which the word wrachys occurs, which 
Ruddiman had proposed to alter to wrathys, Mr. 
Tooke commends him for not yielding in this in- 
stance to the " mischievous fury of commentators 
" and editors to alter those words of their author 
" which they do not understand;" and immedi- 
ately afterwards himself yields to this " mischiev- 
" ous fury," and in three other quotations from the 
same author, alters wrethis to wrechis, wrathis to 
wrachis, wrayth to wraych, telling us they are 
" merely the past tense, and therefore the past 
" participle of the Anglo-Saxon Rec-an, exhalare, 
" to reek." 

Dr. Jameison remarks Mr. Tooke's inconsist- 
ency, but is not fortunate in his account of Wraith. 

" Ruddiman says, ' Forte ab Anglo-Saxon 
" wraeth-an, infestare.' Other conjectures have 
" been thrown out which have no greater proba- 
" bility. I have sometimes thought that the term 
" might be allied to Suio-Gothic raa, genius loci, 
" whence Sioeraa, a nereid, a nymph. In Dale- 
" carlia, as Ihre informs us (vo. rad), spectres are 
" to this day called Raadend. But I rather in- 
" cline to deduce it from Moeso- Gothic, ward-jan, 
" Anglo-Saxon weard-an, Alemmannic uuarten 



144 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

" custodire ; as the apparition called a Wraith, was 
" supposed to be that of one's guardian angel. 
" Anglo-Saxon weard, Islandic vard, Alemmanic 
" German wart, all signify a guardian, a keeper. 

" Now the use of sivarth, Scot. Boreal, shows 
" that the letters have been transferred, in one or 
" other of the terms, so that the original pronun- 
" ciation may have been ward or wart" 

I have never heard Swarth for Wraith in Scotia 
Borealis, and supposing the transposition of r, 
whence comes the s prefixed in Swarth ? 

He continues — " When the maid informed the 
" disciples that the apostle Peter was standing 
" before the gate of the house in which they were 
" assembled, they said, ' It is his angel.' (Acts xii. 
" 15.) This exactly corresponds to the idea still 
" entertained by the vulgar. If literally render- 
" ed in our language it would be — it is his wraith, 
" that is, his guardian angel." 

He has produced no example to shew that 
Wraith was ever used by any body else to signify 
a guardian angel ; which I notice because that is 
a sense of the word quite unknown in the north of 
Scotland. 

He also tells us, that " the term is sometimes 
" used, but improperly, to denote a spirit supposed 
" to preside over the waters." I think he should 
have only said, to reside in the waters ; but whence 
does the impropriety of the usage arise ? Is not 
the term used in this sense over all the Lowlands 
of Scotland \ 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 145 

The wraiths of angry Clyde complain. 

Lewis — Tales of Wonder. 

Scarce was he gone, I saw his ghost, 

It vanish'd with a shriek of sorrow, 
Thrice did the water-wraith ascend, 

And gave a doleful groan through Yarrow. 

Logans Poems. 

A water-wraith or some gruous ghaist. — Journal from 

London to Portsmouth, in the Buchan Dialect. 

By this the storm grew loud apace, 

The water-wraith was shrieking ; 
And in the scowl of heaven each face 

Grew dark as they were speaking. 

Campbell. 

Red came the river down, and loud and oft 
The angry spirit of the water shriek'd. 

Douglas, a Tragedy. 

And Chatham's wraith in heavenly graith 

Inspired bardies saw, man, 
Wi' kindling eyes, cried Willie rise ! 

Would I hae fear'd them a', man. 



Burns. 



In realms of death 
Ulysses meets Alcides' wraith, 
iEneas upon Thracia's shore 
The ghost of murder'd Polydore. 

He held him for some fleeting wraith, 
And not a man of blood and breath. 



W. Scott. 



W. Scott. 



These examples shew the identity of the word in 
meaning with Spirit or Ghost. It is explained by 
Sir Walter Scott, in a note to the couplet last 
quoted, " The spectral apparition of a living per- 
son ;" in which secondary sense the word may be 
thought to differ from Ghaist, but I believe the 



146 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

distinction is not generally understood. I can 
quoteno authority, but I have heard Ghaist used in 
this sense as often as Wraith ; and it is not " the spec- 
" tral apparition of a living person," that Ulysses 
sees in the realms of death. 

Wraith is the Anglo-Saxon " orath, oreth, spi- 
" ritus, spiratio, halitus, anhelitus — aura, flatus," 
Lye, from oreth-ian spirare. Under this verb 
Lye quotes, 

Gast orethath thar he wyle 
Ventus spirat quo vult. 

John iii. 8. 

By the prefix BE is formed Be-orethian, of 
which to Breathe seems to be a contraction, and 
hence Breath. 

Breath is rarely used for Soul or Spirit, and only 
in poetry. 

What is this mighty breath, ye sages say, 
That in a powerful language, felt not heard, 
Instructs the fowls of heaven, and through their breasts 
These acts of love diffuses ? What, but God ! 
Inspiring God, who boundless Spirit all, &c. 

Thomson. 



Can storied urn or animated bust 

?ting breath f 

Gray. 



Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath f 



We might here substitute icraith. 

The history of the word ghost is exactly simi- 
lar to that of wraith, spirit, rvequt, Sec. In the 
Anglo-Saxon, and in Old English, it is gast, in 
Scotch, Ghaist; the change of the Anglo-Saxon A 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 



147 



to O in English, is what has happened in many 
other words. 

Scotch. English. 

Bane Bone 

To grane To groan 

Bate ( Wyntoimi) Boat 



Anglo-Saxon. 

Ban 

Gran-ian 
Bat or Baet 

Ham 

Saul 

Clath 

Gat 

Cawlwyrt 



Hame Home 

Saul Soul 

Claith Cloth 

Gait Goat 

Kail Colewort 

&c. &c. 
Gast is nothing more than gaspt, dropping the 
middle consonant of three. Although to gasp does 
not (so far as I know) occur in Anglo-Saxon dic- 
tionaries, we cannot doubt that it is an Anglo- 
Saxon or Gothic word. It signifies to breathe, 
but in a particular manner, to breathe hard or with 
difficulty, as a person after running a race, or a 
person dying. This limitation, however, of its 
sense may have arisen by accident from the caprice 
of language, as other words have in the same man- 
ner been limited in their mode of application ; — 
To welter is one instance already mentioned, so the 
Anglo-Saxon scyr-an, to cut or shear any thing — 
thecc-an tegere, to cover or thatch any thing, &c. 

Dr. Johnson, with an eye to Skinner's deriva- 
tion of Gasp from gape, gives as its primary mean- 
ing, " to open the mouth wide," which certainly is 
not gasping. The word cannot be spoken of any 

l 2 



148 ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED 

thing that does not breathe, and it always implies 
breathing. 

He staggers round ; his eyeballs roll in death, 
And with short sobs he gasps away his breath. 

Dry den. 

Gast or Ghost can be shewn to have been 
used, like Spiritus, to signify — 1st, the breath; 
2dly, the soul in man ; and 3dly, the disembodied 
spirit. 

The last is the only sense it is now commonly 
understood to have, and examples of that need not 
be produced. 

It is used in the second sense for the soul or 
spirit in the body, in the Anglo-Saxon and in Old 
English ; as geist is still in German and Dutch. 
That it should now be restricted to signify the dis- 
embodied spirit is as striking an instance of the 
caprice of language, as that gasp should have been, 
as I have supposed, restricted from signifying to 
breathe in any manner, to signify to breathe hard 
or with difficulty. In a specimen of a version of 
the Gospels, quoted in Dr. Johnson's History of 
the English Language, are these verses : 

47. Tha cwaeth Maria. Min sawel maersath Drihten. 

48. And min gast geblissude on Gode minum haelende. 

Then quoth Maty, my soul magnifieth the Lord, and my ghost 
hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 

It liketh hem to be clene in body and goste. — Chaucer — The 
Wife of Bathe's Prologue, fol. 33, page 2, col. -. 

As well in body as in goste chaste was she, 
For which she floured in virginitie. 

Fol. 62, page 1, col. 2. 



TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT. 149 

Ne shall the ghost within my heart stent 
To love you best, with all my true entent. 

Fol. 49, page 1, col. 1. 

In great estate 
Her gost was ever in plain humilitie. 

Fol. 48, page 2, col. 2. 

Under the first sense of Gast, halitus, breath, 
Mr. Ley quotes gast muthes his, spiritu oris ejus ; 
Psal. xxxii. 6. And we still retain this sense in the 
expression " To give up the ghost," which means 
nothing more than to give up the breath, animam 
efflare, to die. 

But I must not forget the old goat, which caused my late 
dreadful amazement. The poor creature gave up the ghost the 
day after. — Robinson Crusoe. 

" To give up his or her spirit to God, to " yield 
up his soul to God," are pious expressions ; 
but to give up the ghost (we do not say his 
ghost or her ghost) suggests nothing of the soul, 
it merely signifies to die. The expression has con- 
tinued in use, and well enough understood (like 
many of our particles), after the original manner of 
signification has been lost sight of. 

And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. — 
Mark's Gospel, chap. xv. 

And Ihesus gaf out a greet cry, and diede. — Wiclif's Trans- 
lation. 

In the original, &7tv£vg£ — expired. 



END OF PART II, 



APPENDIX. 



A, page 107. 

" The assignation of particular names, to denote par- 
" ticular objects, that is, the institution of nouns sub- 
" stantive, would, probably, be one of the first steps 
" towards the formation of language. Two savages, who 
" had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up 
" remote from the societies of men, would naturally begin 
" to form that language by which they would endeavour 
" to make their mutual wants intelligible to each other, by 
" uttering certain sounds, whenever they meant to denote 
" certain objects. Those objects only which were most 
u familiar to them, and which they had most frequent 
u occasion to mention, would have particular names assign- 
" ed to them. The particular cave whose covering shelter- 
" ed them from the weather, the particular tree whose 
" fruit relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose 
" water allayed their thirst, would first be denominated by 
" the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other 
" appellations they might think proper, in that primitive 



152 APPENDIX. 

" jargon to mark them. Afterwards, when the more en- 
" larged experience of these savages had led them to 
" observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to 
" make mention of, other caves and other trees, and other 
" fountains, they would naturally bestow, upon each of 
" those new objects, the same name, by which they had 
" been accustomed to express the similar object they were 
" first acquainted with. The new objects had none of them 
" any name of its own, but each of them exactly resembled 
" another object, which had such an appellation. It was 
" impossible that those savages could behold the new 
" objects, without recollecting the old ones ; and the name 
" of the old ones, to which the new bore so close a resem- 
" blance. When they had occasion, therefore, to mention, 
" or to point out to each other, any of the new objects, 
u they would naturally utter the name of the correspondent 
" old one, of which the idea could not fail, at that instant, 
" to present itself to their memory in the strongest and 
" liveliest manner. And thus, those words, which were 
" originally the proper names of individuals, would each 
" of them insensibly become the common name of a mul- 
" titude." — A Dissertation on the Origin of languages, by 
Adam Smith, LL.D. 



B, page 124. 

" I have already, on various occasions, observed, that 
u the question concerning the nature of mind is altogether 
" foreign to the opinion we fonn concerninc: the theory of 
" its operations ; and that, granting it to be of a material 
" origin, it is not the less evident, that all our knowledge 
u of it is to be obtained by the exercise of the powers of 
" consciousness and of reflection. As this distinction. 
'* however, has been altogether overlooked by these pro- 
u found etymologists, I shall take occasion, from the last 



APPENDIX. 153 

° quotation *, to propose, as a problem not unworthy of 
" their attention, an examination of the circumstances 
" which have led men in all ages, to apply, to the sentient 
" and thinking principle within us, some appellation sy- 
" nonymous with spiritus or Trvz.v\ia ; and in other cases, 
" to liken it to a spark of fire, or some other of the most 
" impalpable and mysterious modifications of matter. — 
" Cicero hesitates between these two forms of expression ; 
" evidently, however, considering it as a matter of little 
" consequence which should be adopted, as both appeared 
" to him to be equally unconnected with our conclusions 
" concerning the thing they are employed to typify : — 
" i Anima sit animus, ignisve nescio : nee me pudet, fateri 
'? nescire quod nesciam. Illud si ulla alia de re obscura 
11 afnrmare possem, sive anima sive ignis sit animus, eum 
" jurarem esse divinum.' This figurative language, with 
" respect to Mind, has been considered by some of our 
" later metaphysicians as a convincing proof, that the 
" doctrine of its materiality is agreeable to general belief; 
" and that the opposite hypothesis has originated in the 
" blunder of confounding what is very minute with what 
u is immaterial. 

" To me, I must confess, it appears to lead to a con- 
" elusion directly opposite. For, whence this disposition 
" to attenuate and subtilize, to the very verge of existence, 
" the atoms or elements supposed to produce the pheno- 
" mena of thought and volition, but from the repugnance 
" of the scheme of Materialism to our natural apprehen- 



* A passage from the Diversions of Purley, in which Mr. Tooke quotes 
some etymologies from Vossius : 

" In the same manner Animus, Anima, Tinvfxa. and ^/y^i are participles. — 
" Anima est ab animus. Animus vero est a Graeco Anpoq, quod dici volunfe 
" quasi AsfAog, ab Am sive As^t, quod estnveiw; etLatinis Kspirando, spiritus. 
" lmmo et 4^n est a 4^ w °l uo ^ Hesychius exponit nvew." — Vol. ii. page 20. 



154 APPENDIX. 

u sions ; and from a secret anxiety to guard against a 
" literal interpretation of our metaphorical phraseology ? 
" Nor has this disposition been confined to the vulgar. — 
" Philosophical materialists themselves have only refined 
u farther on the popular conceptions, by entrenching 
" themselves against the objections of their adversaries in 
" the modern discoveries concerning light and electricity, 
" and other inscrutable causes, manifested by their effects 
" alone. In some instances, they have had recourse to 
" the supposition of the possible existence of Matter, under 
" forms incomparably more subtile than what it commonly 
" assumes in these, or in any other class of physical phe- 
" nomena ; — a hypothesis which it is impossible to describe 
" better than in the words of La Fontaine : 

" Quintessence d'atome, extrait de la lumiere. 

<i It is evident that, in using this language, thev have only 
" attempted to elude the objections of their adversaries, 
tl by keeping the absurdity of their theory a little more 
" out of the view of superficial inquirers ; divesting Matter 
*' completely of all those properties by which it is known 
" to our senses ; and substituting, instead of what is com- 
u monly meant by that word, — infinitesimal or evanescent 
" entities, in the pursuit of which imagination herself is 
" quickly lost. 

" The prosecution of this remark would, if I be not 
" mistaken, open a view of the subject widely different 
" from that which modern materialists have taken." — 
Stewart's Philosophical Essays, page 222, second edition. 

It does not appear from the preceding extract, that Mr. 
Stewart has ever questioned the truth of the opinion that 
those words, Uvev/jLa, spiritus, Sgc were transferred to the 
mind metaphorically, or from a supposed resemblance. — 
The consideration he suggests, however likely to influence 



APPENDIX. 155 

a modern materialist, is too refined, I think, to have in- 
fluenced the barbarous inventors of language. 

The likening of life to fire, or fire to life, is extremely 
natural — air is necessary to both, and both produce heat — 
both are of a transient and perishable nature — with both 
there is the existence of a superior element (or principle) 
in an inferior, which it possesses for a time, and imparts a 
lustre to, but leaves at last, the dark ashes, and the cold 
lifeless body, alike fallen from their splendour. But it 
has only been by certain philosophers or philosophic poets 
that the soul has been called a spark of fire ; this has not, 
so far as I know, been a popular opinion or expression in 
any nation. 



C, page 141. 

Mind or at least the human soul is so strongly asso- 
ciated with the human form from our having no knowledge 
of the former but as conjoined with the latter, that as we 
can scarce think of extension without colour, so we cannot 
easily think of soul, but the human form is connected with 
it. Hence the disposition of all nations to lodge the dis- 
embodied spirit in another kind of body, of the same form 
whatever its subtile essence may be. 

We repair 
From earthly vehicles to those of air. 

Pope. 

And the Gods themselves of rude nations are endowed 
with bodies, of the human form, though of greater size. 

Tis true, 'tis certain ; man, though dead, retains 
Part of himself ; th' immortal mind remains : 
The form subsists without the body's aid, 
Aeiial semblance and an empty shade ! 



156 APPENDIX. 

This night my friend, so late in battle lost, 
Stood at my side, a pensive, plaintive ghost ; 
Ev'n now familiar as in life he came, 
Alas ! how different ! yet how like the same ! 

Popes Iliad. 

But philosophers, seeing no reason to suppose the dis- 
embodied soul possesses any particular form or essence, 
and finding it impossible to conjecture its nature or mode 
of existence, when separated from its u earthly vehicle," 
are sometimes led to doubt if it can possibly exist without 
it : forgetting or not considering, that they are equally 
unable to conjecture, what its essence is (though they are 
conscious of its operations) while in the body ; or to con- 
ceive in what manner it is connected with the body. 

" Sed plurimi contra nituntur, animosque quasi capite 
" damnatos, morte multant, neque aliud est quidquam, 
" cur incredibilis his animorum videatur eeternitas, nisi 
" quod nequeant qualis animus sit, vacans corpore, intel- 
" ligere et cogitatione comprehendere. Qua>i vero in- 
" telligant, qualis sit in ipso corpore, qua? conformatio, 
u quae magnitudo, qui locus, ut si jam possent in homine 
" uno cerni omnia, qua? nunc tecta sunt, casurusne in con- 
u spectum videatur : an tanta sit ejus tenuitas, ut fugiat 
" aciem. Haec reputent isti, qui negant animum sine 
u corpore se intelligere posse." — Tuscul. Qiucst. lib. i. 
cap. 50. 



D, page 141. 

" Quid sit porro ipse animus, aut ubi, aut unde, magna 
u dissensio est. Aliis cor ipsum, animus videtur, ex quo 
" excordes, vecordes, concordesque dicuntur, et Na&dca ilk 
" prudens, bis consul Corcu/um, et 

Egregie cordatua homo catus .-Elm" Sextos." 



APPENDIX. 157 

" Empedocles autem animum esse censet cordi sufTusum 
" sanguinem. Aliis pars quaedam cerebri visa est animi 
" principatum tenere. Aliis nee cor ipsum placet, nee 
" cerebri quandam partem, esse animum : sed alii in corde, 
" alii in cerebro dixerunt animi esse sedem et locum. Ani- 
" mum autem alii animam, ut fere nostri declarant nomi- 
" nari : nam et agere animam, efflare dicimus, et animosos, et 
" ex animi sententia : ipse autem animus ab anima dictus 
" est. Zenoni Stoico animus ignis videtur. Sed hgec 
" quidem, quae dixi, cor, cerebrum, animam, ignem, vulgo : 
" reliqua fere singuli, ut multi ante veteres : proxime autem 
<l Aristoxenus, musicus, idemque Philosophus, intentionem 
" ipsius corporis quandam, velut in cantu, et fidibus, quae 
" harmonia dicitur : sic ex corporis totius natura et figura, 
" varios motus cieri, tanquam in cantu sonos. Hie ab 
" artificio suo non recessit, et tamen dixit aliquid quod 
" ipsum quale esset, erat multo ante et dictum et explana- 
" turn a. Platone. Xenocrates animi figuram, et quasi 
" corpus, negavit esse, verum numerum dixit esse, cujus 
" vis, ut jam antea Pythagoras visum erat, in natural. 
" maxima esset. Ejus doctor Plato triplicem finxit ani- 
u mam: cujus principatum, id est rationem, in capite, sicut 
" in arce, posuit : et duas parteis separare voluit iram et 
" enpiditatem quas locis suis disclusit, — iram in pectore, 
" cupiditatem subter praecordia locavit. Dicaearchus autem 
" in eo sermone, quern Corinthi habitum tribus libris ex- 
" ponit, doctorum hominum disputantium, primo libro 
" multos loquenteis facit : duobus Pherecratem quendam 
" Phthiotam senem, quern ait a Deucalione ortum, disser- 
" entem inducit, nihil esse omnino animum, et hoc esse 
" nomen totum inane, frustraque animalia, et animanteis 
*' appellari ; neque in homine animum vel animam, nee in 
" bestia ; vimque omnem earn, qua vel agamus quid, vel 
" sentiamus, in omnibus vivis aequabiliter esse fusam, nee 



158 APPEXDIX. 

" separabilem a corpore esse ; quippe quse nulla sit, nee sit 
u quidquam, nisi corpus unum et simplex, ita figuration, ut 
" temperatione naturae vigeat et sentiat. Aristoteles longe 
u omnibus (Platonem semper excipio) praestans et ingenio 
" et diligentia, cum quatuor ilia genera principiorum esset 
" complexus, e quibus omnia orirentur, quintam quandam 
" naturam censet esse, e qua sit mens. Cogitare enim, et 
" providere, et discere, et docere, et invenire aliquid, et 
" tarn multa alia, meminisse, amare, odisse, cupere, timere, 
u angi, laetari : — haec, et similia eorum, in horum quatuor 
" generum nullo inesse putat. Quintum genus adhibet, 
" vacans nomine ; et sic ipsum animum limX^dav appellat 
" novo nomine, quasi quandam continuatam motionem et 
" perennem. Nisi quae me forte fugiunt, hae sunt fere 
"omnium de ammo sententiae. — Tuscuh Quest, lib. i. 
cap. 18. 

E, page 122. 

" Manifold and admirable are the purposes to which the 
" external signs of passion are made subservient by the 
" Author of our nature. In the first place, the signs of 
" internal agitation displayed externally to every spectator, 
" tend to fix the signification of many words. The only 
" effectual means to ascertain the meaning of any doubtful 
" word, is an appeal to the thing it represents : and hence 
" the ambiguity of words expressive of things that are not 
" objects of external sense. Passion, strictly speaking, is 
" not an object of external sense : but its external si^ns 
" are ; and by means of these signs, passions may be 
" appealed to with tolerable accuracy : thus the words that 
" denote our passions, next to those that denote external 
u objects, have the most distinct meaning. Words signi- 
" fying internal action and the more delicate feelings ire 
< 4 less distinct." — Kofiies' Elements of Criticism, chap, w 



APPENDIX. 159 

While the utility of the external signs of our feelings or 
emotions in giving them names or speaking of them is 
obvious, it is also manifest that the words which literally 
describe the external sign, as well as the words applied 
metaphorically to the acts or emotions of the mind, acquire 
a precision in their figurative sense from usage, which they 
cannot possess when first made use of; and which even 
the signs themselves, the whole of which can never be 
expressed by words, do not possess. 

" Qu'est-ce que la joie? me dit Massieu. Je cms en 
u faire le signe en prenant l'air riant et joieux ; mais il me 
" vint aussitot dans l'esprit que Massieu pourroit bien 
" confondre les mots satisfaction, contentement , plaisir, bon- 
u heur, allegresse, qui, a peu de chose pres, ont le meme 
''signe exterieur pour expression." — Cours d' Instruction 
d'un Sourd-muet. Par Roche Ambroise Sicard. 

We are struck by the expression on hearing seamen 
speak of " seeing a breeze" when they see far off the ruf- 
fling of the sea occasioned by it ; but we use exactly the 
same figure when we speak of seeing one's passions, his 
anguish, joy, fyc. 



END OF THE APPENDIX. 



INDEX. 



Alert, 119. 

Allow, 76. 

Ande, Swedish, 133, 134. 

Anima, 127. 

Animus, 127. 153. 

Appal, 119. 

Ask, 77. 

Aversion, 120. 

Babble, 16. 
Bather, 61. 
Batter, 22. 
Beads, 113. 
Bechance, 68. 
Become, 75. 
Bedabble, 72. 
Bedeck, 75. 
Bedew, 75. 
Bedrop, 68. 
Befall, 69. 
Begin, 76. 
Begrudge, 75. 
Behead, 76. 
Behold, 76. 
Behowl, 68. 
Bekiss, 75. 
Belabour, 69. 
Belated, 75. 
Beleager, 73. 
Belie, 69. 
Believe, 76. 
Belong, 76. 
Beloved, 75. 
Bemire, 75. 
Bemoan, 68. 
Bequeath, 77. 
Berattle, 69. 



Bereave, 71. 
Berhyme, 73. 
Bescatter, 74. 
Beseech, 69. 
Beset, 75. 
Beslubber, 71. 
Besmear, 75. 
Besmoke, 68. 
Besmottrit, 57. 
Besot, 75. 
Bespatter, 36, 71. 
Bespeak, 70. 
Bespice, 75. 
Bespit, 68. 
Bespot, 70. 
Bespread, 69. 72. 
Besprent, 77. 
Besprinkle, 71, 72. 7 
Bestain, 75. 
Bestir, 72. 
Bestow, 77. 
Bestrew, 69. 
Bestride, 69. 
Betake, 72. 
Bethink, 72. 
Bethump, 75. 
Betoss, 75. 
Betray, 76. 
Bewail, 68. 
Bewave, Scot. 74. 
Beweep, 71. 
Bewet, 71. 
Bewitch, 70. 
Bicker, 63. 
Blaster, Scot. 44. 
Blether, Scot. 65. 
Blinter, Scot. 26 

M 



162 



INDEX 



Bluster, 44. 

Bolden, 10. 

Bore, " a great bore," 61. 

Bother, Scot. 60. 

Brawl, 16. 

Breard or Braird, Scot. 81 

Breath, 134. 146. 

Breathe, 76. 

Breeze, 76. 

Brezza, Ital. 76. 

Brighten, 10. 

Brise, French, 76. 

Brook, Scot. 32. 

Bubble, 16. 

Bungle, 16. 

Chat, 16. 
Chatter, 27. 
Checker, 53. 
Chit, 16. 
Clamber, 21. 
Clatter, 54. 
Claver, Scot. 65. 
Clay, 103. 
Clottered, 43. 
Clutter, 56. 
Crackle, 13. 

Dabble, 15. 
Dandle, 12. 
Dawdle, 17. 
Defile, 77. 
Dinle, Scot. 13. 
Dirle, Scot. 12. 
Drawl, 14. 
Dribble, 11. 
Drivel, 16. 
Drizzle, 12, 
Dug, 82. 
Dwindle, 12. 

Eloignement, Fr. 120. 
Eulogize, 10. 



Familiarize, 10. 
Faugh ! 122. 
Faulter, 23. 
Fester, 39. 
Ficker, Scot. 63. 
Fie ! 122. 

Fireflaught, Scot. 30. 
Fitchok, Scot. 103. 
Fitter, Scot. 61 
Flatter, 33. 
Flaughter, Scot. 29. 
Flecker, 52. 
Flicker, 32. 
Flight, 29. 
Flighter, Scot. 29. 

Flitter, 29. 

Flodder, Scot. 62. 

Flounder, 33. 

Fluster, 34. 

Flutter, 29. 

Fodder, 53. 

Foh! 122. 

Fondle, 16. 

Frighten, 10. 

Fritter, 39. 

Frizzle, 16. 

Fuddle, 15. 

Fugh! 122. 

Fumble, 16. 

Gabble, 15. 
Gastered, 59. 
Gather, 37. 
Ghaist, Scot. 14(3. 
Ghost, 146. 
Glimmer. S 
Glister. 
Glitter, 24. 
Ground, 44. 
Guttle. 15. 

Hamlet, 102. 
Handsel, 83. 



INDEX, 



163 



Harden, 10. 
Hasten, 34. 
Hatter, Scot. 64. 
Head, 81. 
Hilter, 59. 
Hiss, 123. 
Hobble, 16. 
Hover, 28. 
Huddle, 16. 

Jangle, 16. 

Je, Scot. -diminutive, 102. 

Language, 113. 

Let, dim. termination, 102. 

Linger, 45. 

Liquefy, 9. 

Listen, 34. 

Loiter, 46. 

Lopperand, Scot. 58. 

Lower, 119. 

♦ 

Mollify, 9. 
Mould, 43. 
Moulder, 43. 
Muddle, 16. 
Mumble, 16. 
Mutter, 48. 

Nibble, 16. 
Nicher, Scot. 64. 

Ogle, 15. 
Or, 61. 
Ordo, 101. 

Pacify, 9. 
Pamper, 53. 
Patter, 38. 
Pester, 66. 
Piddle, 16. 
Pish! 123. 
Playok, Scot. 103. 



Uvevfjia, 133. 
Pother, 56. 
Pout, 119. 
Prankle, 11. 
Prate, 16. 
Prattle, 11. 
Prickle, 14. 
Pshaw! 123. 
*vm, 133. 153. 

Quaver, 40. 
Quibble, 16. 
Quiver, 39. 

Ramble, 14. 
Rax, Scot. 100. 
Recht, German, 99. 
Reckon, 34. 
Redden, 10. 
Regard, 118. 
Right, 94. 
Ruddock, 103. 

Saunter, 56. 

Scatter, 46. 

Sched, Scot. 54. 

Schocheel, Scot. 17. 

Scrabble, 17. 

Scribble, 10. 

Scuffle, 16. 

Sed, Lat. 81. 

Shatter, 47. 

Shelter, 53. 

Shimmer, 26. 

Shudder, 41. 

Shuffle, 11. 
Sibilo, Lat. 123. 
Signalize, 10. 
Sipiarffu), 123. 
Slattern, 64. 
Slaughter, 32. 
Slidder, 43. 
Slittered, 57. 



164 



INDEX 



Slotter, Scot. 64. 
Slottry, Scot. 64. 
Smore, Scot. 55. 
Smother, 55. 
Smottrit, 57. 
Smut, 57. 
Sniffter, Scot. 63. 
Snivel, 16. 
Soften, 10. 
Spatter, 36. 
Spikelet, 102. 
Spinnerand, 57. 
Spirit, 133. 153. 
Sprinkle, 77. 
Sputter, 36. 
Squander, 55. 
Stagger, 34. 
Stakker, 34. 
Steiter, Scot. 35. 
Stiffen, 10. 
Straddle, 13. 
Straight, 99. 
Streamlet, 102. 
Strengthen, 10. 
Striddle, Scot. 13. 
Stupify, 10. 
Style, 113. 
Supine, 120. 
Suppliant, 120. 
Swaddle, 12. 
Swagger, 35. 
Swatter, Scot. 66. 
Sweeten, 10. 
Swelter, 42. 
Swidder, Scot. 61. 
Swindle, 16. 



Teat, 82. 
Thread, 82. 
Threaten, 34. 
Threshold, 90. 
Threswald, Scot. 90. 
Thunder, 52, 
Tickle, 13. 
Tinkle, 12. 
Truth, 84. 
Tush! 123. 

Vilify, 9. 

Waddle, 16. 
Wallock, Scot. 104. 
Wamble, 16. 
Wander. 50. 63. 
Waterwraith, 143. 
Wave, 39. 
Waver, 39. 
Welter, 49. 
Wheedle, 15. 
Whimper, 56. 
Whiten, 10. 
Wilder, 55. 
Winglet, 102. 
Wonder, 
Wraith, 143. 
Wrangle. 14. 
Wriggle, 16. 
Wrong, 95. 

Yeavok, Scot. 103. 
Young, 



N.B. The edition of Chaucer referred to is that M Imprinted 
" at London, by Ihon Kyngston. for Ihon Wright, dwelling in 
" Poule's Church-yarde, Anno 1561." 



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